NEVER BEEN KISSED
A mostly moral teen comedy about courage, chastity, and belonging.
Should You Watch It?
Never Been Kissed is an unusually thoughtful teen comedy. It takes real struggles seriously, treats friendship and kindness as meaningful, and gives its heroine a strong commitment to chastity. Josie wants to wait for her one true love, supposedly in marriage, rather than chase sexual experience.
The movie also addresses vanity, conditional love, peer pressure, drug and alcohol use, and the pain of being an outcast. Its moral center is valuable, especially when Josie refuses to compromise herself for a story or popularity.
But the film includes sexual humor and discussion, a condom demonstration, underage alcohol use, marijuana-related content, mild profanity, and pagan elements. Those concerns make it inappropriate for younger teenagers, though older youth may learn something worthwhile from it. For your family, this is worth considering for older youth with parental discernment.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESJosie Geller is a talented 25-year-old copy editor who has never worked as a reporter—and has never been kissed. To scoop the Chicago Tribune, her boss sends her undercover to a local high school to report on today’s teenagers.
Josie returns to the world of cliques, practical jokes, humiliations, popularity contests, and a possible romance with a Shakespeare teacher. As she struggles to find her story, she must also face the adolescence she once tried to escape.
Is It Any Good?
Three stars means this is a solid, worthwhile comedy with real limitations. The source review praises it as relatively intelligent, concerned with real issues, and unusual in giving its young heroine a desire for her first kiss rather than a longing for sex.
Its strongest material centers on friendship, acceptance, resisting the crowd, and choosing moral courage over popularity. The film’s treatment of contemporary teenage struggles gives it more substance than many teen comedies. The source review does not provide detailed observations about the acting, direction, or visual craft.
The Worldview
The film exalts chastity, friendship, kindness, acceptance, and individuality. Josie rebukes vanity and conditional love, encourages people not to follow the crowd, and argues that all people should be respected and loved. Her example makes chastity a source of strength and courage rather than embarrassment.
The movie also rebukes drug use and depicts the struggles facing teenagers. It presents a mostly moral outlook, but some minor characters express pagan attitudes. Its frank discussion of sexual behavior, alcohol, drugs, and other teenage troubles makes it unsuitable for younger teenagers.
The film’s moral vision aligns with biblical teaching when it honors self-control, faithful love, friendship, and resistance to peer pressure. It departs from a biblical worldview by treating these virtues without clearly grounding them in God’s transcendent moral order. Scripture says, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality” (1 Thessalonians 4:3).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Moderate moral worldview extolling chastity, friendship, kindness, acceptance while rebuking vanity & drug use with some pagan attitudes from some minor characters; 11 mostly mild obscenities & 11 mostly exclamatory profanities; mild slapstick violence including boy throws eggs at girl, pies thrown in faces, slipping & falling & girl runs into a door; mild sexually suggestive dancing, heavy kissing, some sexual humor, sexual talk, implied promiscuous character, & demonstration of how to put condoms on bananas; no nudity but some skimpy costumes; alcohol use by minors; smoking & woman eats marijuana-infused brownies; and, lying & cruel talk toward unpopular students.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
Josie wants to wait for her one true love, supposedly in marriage. What does patience and self-control look like in a culture that pressures people to rush intimacy?
1 Corinthians 6:18–20 · 1 Thessalonians 4:3–5The film rebukes vanity and conditional love. How can you tell when acceptance is based on popularity rather than genuine friendship?
1 Samuel 16:7 · James 2:1–5Josie is encouraged not to follow the crowd. When have you faced pressure to join in something you knew was wrong?
Romans 12:2 · Proverbs 1:10The movie argues that people in every generation include the brain, the jock, the beauty, and the outcast. How does Jesus call us to treat people who are overlooked?
Matthew 25:40 · Philippians 2:3–4The Final Word
Never Been Kissed is a mostly moral comedy with a worthwhile message about chastity, friendship, and refusing to live for popularity. Its sexual discussion, underage drinking, drug references, and pagan elements call for discernment. For older youth and adults, the answer is WORTH THE TRIP — OLDER YOUTH.
