Picture This (film)

Unpopular Mandy Gilbert (Ashley Tisdale) lives with her overbearing father Tom (Kevin Pollak), and has only two friends, Alexa (Lauren Collins) and Cayenne (Shenae Grimes). She is constantly bullied and embarrassed by the popular girls at high school, particularly Lisa Cross (Cindy Busby), who happens to be the girlfriend of the guy she is in love with swim team captain Drew Patterson (Robbie Amell). Mandy is about to turn 18 and wants her life to change, she wants to be noticed by Drew.

She decides to try out for the swim team, but loses her glasses at the pool, hits her head, and falls in the water unconscious. When she awakens, she finds out Drew gave her CPR and they talk to each other. Lisa thinks Mandy is a threat and tries to humiliate her by taking Drew to the pet shop where Mandy works, hoping Drew will laugh at her. Things take a different turn, as Drew doesn't care about Mandy being a clerk there, and Drew invites her to go to the Commons the next day.

The next day, Mandy turns 18 and her father surprises her by replacing her semi-working phone with a new and expensive video phone and contact lenses; she thinks her life couldn't be any better. Her father reveals his intentions to move with her when she goes to college at UCSB next year, but Mandy is too afraid to say anything about it. Later that day, she flirts with Drew at the lake near school, although her dad specifically said not to go. When Lisa finds that Mandy is with Drew, she is outraged and uses Mandy's phone to film it, which she accidentally drops to show Tom, who then confronts Mandy. Before going home, Drew asks her to his party on Saturday and Mandy happily accepts. At home, Tom is disappointed in Mandy's actions and grounds her, saying she cannot go out or use any electronics.

Mandy is able to manipulate her father into letting her go study at Alexa's place, but with the condition of checking in every half an hour with her video phone with proof of Alexa's mom. She asks Alexa if she has any home videos of her mother, which they play on television while trying to persuade her father that they are supervised by an adult; her dad is convinced.

On their way to the party, Mandy discovers her dress is destroyed by Lisa. They head to the mall for a dress, where Lisa pays an employee to serve Mandy a drink with nuts in it (Mandy has a nut allergy). Mandy's head swells up, but luckily, Alexa has allergy medication, which Mandy drinks nearly all of and falls asleep, before falling into a fountain.

Back at the parking lot, Mandy, Alexa and Cayenne witness their car being towed away. They enter a singing competition to win the money to get the car back. Alexa, however, has stage fright, so Mandy takes over and stuns the public. Her father calls her in the middle of her performance. She begs the audience to help her out and convinces her dad that the audience is a DVD they're watching. They later win the competition and pay the fine for her towed car. Lisa has bought the same dress as well, and tries to stop Mandy from going to the party by giving a guard money in order to bar them from getting in.

Tom has his own problems as well. His sister Marsha drops off her trouble-making son Peyton to be babysat, however, Peyton destroys the model apartment of where Tom and Mandy would live when she is at college. As a result, Tom is crushed and thinks he failed as a father to Mandy. Meanwhile, the girls are able sneak past the guard into Drew's house, where Mandy notices Lisa wearing the same dress. She wants to give up and go home, and Alexa now reveals a rumor known as the Patterson legend, which states that every year at this party, a Patterson boy gets a moment alone with a girl in the "tower" of the house and then leads her into the shower with him. However, Cayenne realizes what she has been through to be here, and says that it is fate and encourages Mandy to slow dance with Drew. When he wants to go to a private place with her, she excuses herself for a minute.

Mandy tells Alexa and Cayenne she wants to admit the truth to her father about her whereabouts. When she does, Tom tells her he trusts her, and asks her if he has been a good dad. Mandy responds that he is a great dad, and decides not to tell she is actually at a party. She goes with Drew. Since Alexa and Cayenne have told Mandy about the Patterson legend, she expects the worst. However, much to her surprise, the "tower" actually turns out to be Drew's photography studio, which is filled with pictures of his family, friends, pets, and one of Mandy that he took at the lake. Seeing this, Mandy is relieved and realizes he just wants to spend time with her. Drew goes to the bathroom to wash his hands, but does not tell her what he's doing. When Mandy hears the running water, she thinks that it is the shower and becomes uncomfortable, so she leaves. Meanwhile, Lisa has been drinking all night and Alexa films her vomiting from under a glass table. The clip is playing on the video screens as the girls exit the party.

Back at home, Tom shows Mandy the updated detachable version of the model home he built for the two of them. However, Mandy sees this as a metaphor for her relationship with her father, and explains that she doesn't want to be detachable. Tom replies that he trusts her and should let her go. He is aware that she went to the party, but is not disappointed.

At the end of the film, Mandy and her friends attend their Senior Prom. Prom king Drew is about to crown Lisa as Prom Queen, but realizes that he loves Mandy, not Lisa. After spotting Mandy, Drew brings her up to the center stage and crowns her as his queen. They share a passionate kiss in the light, as the prom goers (including Alexa and Cayenne) snap photos of the kiss on their camera phones.

• Ashley Tisdale as Mandy Gilbert
• Robbie Amell as Drew Patterson
• Kevin Pollak as Tom Gilbert
• Lauren Collins as Alexa
• Shenae Grimes as Cayenne
• Cindy Busby as Lisa Cross
• Marie-Marguerite Sabongui as Blair
• Angela Galuppo as Kimberly
• Annie Murphy as Girl on Phone

The film was executive produced by Tisdale's company Blondie Girl Productions and is directed by Stephen Herek.[2] Tisdale said, "When I read the script for Picture This!, I just fell in love with the lead character Mandy, this goofy, unpopular, girl next door who knows what she wants, but isn’t willing to sacrifice who she is to get it... Mandy’s real and I think a lot of kids will relate to that. It reminds me a lot of when I was in high school. I wasn’t really in the popular group, but I wasn’t in the nerdy group. I was somewhere in the middle, too."[2] Tisdale performs the hit 80's single, "Shadows Of The Night" in the film.

The film was shot on location in Montreal, Quebec, during the summer months of 2007. Fender instruments, Juicy Couture, and Swiss Army all contributed props to the film. The scene where the "girls" swerve out of control on "the freeway" was actually shot in the borough of Verdun, on a residential street. The scene where Mandy receives a call from her dad and has to pretend that she is not driving was shot on a main street in the borough of LaSalle, right next to the borough of Verdun. The scene shot at the "mall" when they were shopping is Fairview shopping mall in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, a large residential area in Montreal. The school scenes are at École secondaire du Chêne-Bleu, in Pincourt.

The soundtrack of Picture This was never available to download in stores. It features the song "Shadows of the Night", performed by Ashley Tisdale. Also the song "4ever" by The Veronicas could be heard on the promotional movies spots.

The film was released on DVD in the United States on July 22, 2008. The movie was released on Blu-ray on March 29, 2011.[3] The DVD features:

• Widescreen Feature Film
• The Making Of Picture This!
• Cell Phone Confessions
• Making a Concert: Behind the Scenes of Shadows of the Night Performance
• Scene Selected Cell Phone "Text" Commentary Between Shenae and Lauren
• Picture This Trivia Quiz
• Trailers of Nim's Island and Moondance Alexander

• Official website
• Picture This at IMDb
• Picture This at Rotten Tomatoes