Monte Carlo

Directed by Thomas Bezucha. Starring Selena Gomez, Leighton Meester, Katie Cassidy, Catherine Tate, Pierre Boulanger, Andie MacDowell, Cory Monteith G cert, general release, 109 min

LONG BEFORE it became a shiny star vehicle for tween queen Selena Gomez, Monte Carlowas Headhunters, a debut novel from Jules Bass, the director of The Hobbitand Coneheads. This one-time hot literary property – a mash-up of How to Marry a Millionaireand Dirty Rotten Scoundrels– was snapped up before publication more than a decade ago. By 2005, the project was earmarked as a Sex and the Cityclone to star Nicole Kidman.

But by 2011, nobody wants another SATC. Kidman's name still pops up on the credits as a producer, but she is nowhere in sight. That's because Headhunters, a comedy about a group of Midwestern hens who pose as heiresses in order to snare rich husbands, is now Monte Carlo, a Pants Sisterhood travelogue about a high school graduate and two college kids ditching a coach ride through Paris for the bling of the French principality.

The displacement frequently tells: none of the central troika (Gomez, Leighton Meester and Katie Cassidy) are old enough to sound like their characters. It’s trying enough to listen to spinster- babble about finding one’s place in the world when Julia Roberts is the speaker. Here you wonder if “world” is a hip new word for campus. The film’s many romantic entanglements, similarly, leave one to ponder ‘What time shall we pick you up from the school disco?’

Even the titular location is a poor fit for teenage girls. The screenplay dutifully knots itself into an unbecoming asana to find a reason for them to go there.

See, there’s this spoiled heiress and she’s a ringer for Grace, Ms Gomez’ twinkling heroine. And Grace is in Paris with her uptight new stepsister Meg (Meester) and boisterous BF Emma (scene- stealer Cassidy) when a terrible case of mistaken identity lands the ladies in Monaco.

Once there, Grace must keep up the pretence or an auction to help orphans in Kenya and Romania will be called off.

But will dreamboat Pierre Boulanger lose interest when he finds out she’s from Texas? Will Meg loosen up and make off with that dishy rugby player? Will Emma realise that the heart’s desire can always be found in your own backyard? And won’t somebody think of the orphans?

Gomez, though less comfortable here than she is delivering as-if sarcasm on the Disney Channel, does enough to please the Waverly Place set. Everybody else should picture a Love Boatspecial with vulgar Bulgari product placements.