Emma Roberts, aka Nancy Drew, aka Julia Roberts�s niece, plays a spoilt Malibu princess whose despairing father (Aidan Quinn) packs her off to a strict girls-only British boarding school in the hope that the brat will learn some life lessons.

Star rating: **
Dir: Nick Moore
With: Emma Roberts, Alex Pettyfer, Aidan Quinn, Shirley Henderson

Emma Roberts, aka Nancy Drew, aka Julia Roberts's niece, plays a spoilt Malibu princess whose despairing father (Aidan Quinn) packs her off to a strict girls-only British boarding school in the hope that the brat will learn some life lessons.

Forced to swap her expensive Californian street-wear for a hideous school uniform and to hand over her jewel-encrusted iPhone for a lacrosse stick, Roberts's petulant Poppy initially hates class and dorm life under the watchful eye of Shirley Henderson's matron and Natasha Richardson's headmistress. But before you can say jolly hockey-sticks, she's succumbing to British charms (including those of the head's cute son, Alex Pettyfer) and learning lessons in composure, the importance of friendship and suchlike.

Roberts and her adult supporting cast are good enough (although the latter are largely sidelined by the generally pretty bland kids), but the direction is sloppy and the script doesn't have anywhere near enough decent jokes. This D-minus comedy will primarily appeal to 'tweens - Mean Girls it ain't.