Plot
The story is narrated by Lisa Janusch (Marla Sokoloff), the bitter and jealous head cheerleader of Lincoln High School's B-squad.
Diane Weston (Marley Shelton), the popular head cheerleader of Lincoln High School's A-squad, becomes pregnant by the star football quarterback Jack Bartlett (James Marsden). The two move out of their parents' homes to find an apartment of their own. Jack initially has problems staying in a job, due to his tactless personality, but finally gets hired at a video rental store. In spite of their problems coming up with the rent money, Jack and Diane try as hard as they can to survive while going to school at the same time. Lisa, Diane's bitter rival, occasionally runs into Jack at the rental store. She is interested in winning Jack's heart, but fails to get his attention. After struggling with the rent and anticipating the financial hardship of supporting a family, Diane and her four cheerleader squadmates, Kansas (Mena Suvari), Cleo (Melissa George), Lucy (Sara Marsh), and Hannah (Rachel Blanchard), plan the perfect bank robbery. They promise each other not to tell Jack about their plan, because of his inability to lie to others.
The squad watches heist films to learn how to rob banks, and Kansas visits her mother at the women's penitentiary for tips on where to find weaponry. Following the women's advice, Diane and her friends visit a bug exterminator, "The Terminator" (W. Earl Brown), who sells illegal arms and ammo. He refuses to sell them the guns unless they accept his daughter, Fern (Alexandra Holden), on the squad. The squad agrees to do so and they begin rehearsing the robbery, as well as their choreography for the winter ball.
During winter break, they order masks to hide their identities. Lucy backs out of the heist because she receives a scholarship to Harvard. At Christmas, Diane receives an engagement ring from Jack. She then finds out he sold his GTO in order to buy her the ring. The squad is forced to buy a new get-away vehicle, which turns out to be an old van with bad brakes.
At their first robbery at a supermarket, Lucy returns to the group having decided to help them after all. Lisa happens to be in the store at the time of the robbery, and notices that they perform cheerleader stunts in order to cover up the security cameras. The squad robs the bank and come close to shooting a customer after one of the guns discharges. They make off with armloads of cash and celebrate their success after burning their Betty costumes. The robbery is reported on TV. Neither Diane nor her friends expect Lisa to suspect them until they are confronted by her and the B-squad in the high school cafeteria, followed by the FBI.
Diane and her friends are jailed and need an alibi, so Diane promises to promote Lisa to captain of the A-squad in order to keep Lisa silent, since she is approaching her third trimester and can't do rigorous activity. The group is outraged, but come to appreciate this decision.
In order to cover up her actions, Diane tells Jack she won the lottery and after they have their children, Jack wins his senatorial campaign, and Diane's squad lead successful lives after high school.
Read more about this topic: Sugar & Spice
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
And treason labouring in the traitor’s thought,
And midwife Time the ripened plot to murder brought.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“There comes a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)