Prom Pact sees feminist Mandy Yang trying her best to get into Harvard, and a tutoring job just might help her achieve her goals.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Mandy Yang is an outcast by choice at her high school, and her best friend Ben Plunkett is the same, albeit his heart has begun fluttering for the regular high school life, something he believes is passing him by.
Mandy wishes to get into Harvard and work with her hero, the two-time Nobel prize winner Dr. Ingrid Downs, who’s a Harvard graduate and now a tenured professor there. She mentors young women like Mandy who want the change the world for the better.
However, when she gets waitlisted, Mandy’s world comes crashing down, until Ben sets her straight, encouraging her to ideate something that’ll help her achieve her goals. Her solution is the most popular jock and basketball team captain at the school, Graham Lansing.
His father is a senator and a Harvard alumnus. Ms. Chen, the school counselor, advises Mandy to get in with Mr. Lansing and get him to write a letter of recommendation. Mandy begins tutoring Graham to become his friend, all in order to get his father to help her.
However, she begins to actually fall for Graham, while her commitments to her best friend begin faltering at an alarming rate. Ben, meanwhile, fidgets and mumbles his way through a couple of dates with his dream girl, LaToya Reynolds.
When a misunderstanding leaves Mandy heartbroken, Ben leaves LaToya sitting at the restaurant to go pick up and help his best friend. However, Mandy forgets her prom pact with Ben again, which had ruined his chances with LaToya again, causing him to lash out at her and distance himself.
Meanwhile, Graham also learns the truth about Mandy’s efforts at befriending him, as she becomes all alone and a laughing stock. She realizes her mistakes and makes up for them, mending her friendship with Ben and helping him with LaToya.
In the graduation speech, she acknowledges Graham’s help and role in making her last semester such a great time. She also receives great news and heads off to the next phase of her life with confidence, albeit in a bittersweet way.
Prom Pact ends with Mandy in Harvard, Boston, reuniting with her high school love and reigniting the flame.
Prom Pact ending explained in detail:
Do LaToya & Ben end up together?
Ben Plunkett has the biggest crush on LaToya Reynolds, but her popularity scares him, and an awkward Ben becomes goofier and more awkward around her. However, he mumbles and fidgets his way to her heart anyway, as she takes a liking to these offbeat charms of his that are so genuine and pure.
When Mandy cancels movie night, he bumps into LaToya outside the theatre and asks her to accompany him to the movie. After the screening, he nervously axes his own foot by losing a chance to take her out for waffles. Later, however, Mandy helps him ask LaToya out for a dinner date at Olive Garden on his birthday.
When Mandy calls him to give her company after getting heartbroken by a misunderstanding related to Graham, Ben has to leave LaToya to go and help his best friend, which understandably upsets her. He comes around, though, and after apologizing and expressing his regrets profusely, he convinces her to give him another chance.
She agrees but her idea for a do-over is to ask him for prom. He tells her that he’s already going to prom with Mandy, which makes her even more furious and she seemingly eludes his scope forever, but when the prom night arrives, LaToya is crowned as the prom queen, and to his bewilderment, Ben is crowned as the king.
He decides then and there to not let his high school life pass him by as he sulks in regret and does not seize the chance. He makes a big speech about it and announces that he’s going to kiss the prom queen, before going in for it, and LaToya cheerfully welcomes him. The two officially begin dating and at the end of Prom Pact, are the happiest couple at North Seattle High.
How do Mandy & Graham get together?
At the start of Prom Pact, Mandy is all starry-eyed at the prospect of getting into Harvard, her dream college and the only place she can go to (she dreads names like Dartmouth or Browns). However, she receives a proper whiplash when she gets waitlisted.
Ben encourages her and the school counselor, Ms. Chen advises her, to keep trying for Harvard, and on her suggestion, Mandy decides to somehow get in with Senator Lansing, a Harvard graduate, and get him to write her a letter of recommendation.
Lansing is the father of North Seattle High’s most popular senior, Graham Lansing, the basketball team captain who’s the biggest deal for all the girls but just a “Neanderthal” for Mandy. However, she manages to convince him that her tutoring will do him a lot of good in his AP Psych classes.
Initially, a total failure, Mandy does manage to make tutoring fun and interactive for Graham, who demonstrates a surprising ability to learn and absorb things rather quickly, along with being a genuinely kind and solid guy. Mandy, to her surprise, begins falling for him, but the goal-oriented quest keeps nagging her subconscious.
She meets Graham’s mother, gets to know about his family, and also how his father doesn’t take his achievements to be anything worthwhile or worth being proud of. Later, she agrees to go to a fundraiser party where she meets Senator Lansing, who offers her help with her Harvard acceptance.
However, a girl who’s totally fallen for Graham, Mandy chooses to show his father what a gem his son is, denying his help with her Harvard goal. However, when she overhears Graham’s brothers teasing him about being “holed up in the basement” with another girl for the entire afternoon, Mandy’s heart is shattered.
She confronts him about it but Graham manages to win her heart back, with a flashy promposal, the preparations for which were the sole purpose he was with another girl that afternoon. Misunderstandings are cleared and Mandy happily accepts his promposal, offending Ben for the last time.
As Ben lashes out at her, talking about how she only wanted to befriend Graham to get to his father, students record their falling out and Graham ends up watching it. Handing her the letter of recommendation his father wrote for her, he breaks things up with her.
At the end of Prom Pact, Mandy returns the letter and apologizes to Graham, before acknowledging just how much the time with him meant for her at the graduation speech. After the speech, she bids farewell to Ben and later Graham, ending things on a bittersweet note.
However, before Prom Pact rolls the credits, they stumble upon each other again, at Harvard. Graham tells her that he’s in Boston as he’s taken a gap year to determine what he wants to do in life, instead of doing things for his father’s approval.
That’s not the only thing he’s there for, though, and before he can finish his sentence, Mandy lunges at him with a kiss, and the two finally reunite.
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