MovieChat Forums > Flipped (2010) Discussion > "Peloponnesian war" "I was looking for ...

"Peloponnesian war" "I was looking for the area of a rhombus"


In class the girl is asked for the answer and she says "The Peloponnesian war". The teacher then responds "I'm sure that is the answer to something but I was looking for the area of a rhombus". The entire class then starts laughing.

Shouldn't the class have laughed as soon as she said "The Pelopennesian war"? Surely they didn't need to be explained why that is a ridiculous answer. Or is there something funny about what the teacher said that I am missing?

I feel like they placed the kids laughter at that point because that is when we the audience fully understand the joke.

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If you laugh at another student or humiliate a student for a reason that is not deemed good enough for the teacher, you could get into trouble. With her comment, the teacher gave them the permission to find this funny.

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You're right - it was simply poor writing. Some other glaring examples that this film suffered from:

* The father (and possibly Bryce) being a "coward" storyline that was suddenly dropped
* The lack of resolution for the father / daughter slapping scene
* The lack of explanation for where the doo wop singer sons got the money for the demo (despite this question being brought up in the film)
* The absurd amount of cash the schoolgirls were spending on the basket boys (people were making an average of $70 a week, so giving your daughter almost that much is ridiculous).
* The explanation for Bryce's fathers bitterness (sure, he gave up being a musician - why?)
* This was the 50's and the father of a teenage girl is cool with that girl going upstairs with two teenage boys to "show them her room"?
* Bryce suddenly bringing the eggs/garbage out the front door right a few seconds after he just left Juli there (and he always threw them in the garbage in the garage before). Uh, were you really shocked she was still there?

Other things wrong with this movie:

* The inaccurate / terrible performance of the "retarded" brother
* The totally inaccurate poster that shows Juli and Bryce sitting together in the tree (which never happened, as Bryce was a complete knob who didn't support Juli - because he didn't want to be late for school! Because kids love school so much). It's absurd, as the whole point of the movie was that he didn't understand her until the very last minute of the movie (at which point, the tree had been chopped down long ago).

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