Baz Bamigboye in the Daily Mial

Gurinder Chadha lined up the young cast of her new movie Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging and sprinkled some Keira Knightley dust over them.

‘I know we’re going to have the Keira effect after the film opens,’ Gurinder said at the film’s recent cast and crew screening.

She was referring to her picture Bend It Like Beckham – the movie that marked Keira as a future star.

Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging will certainly launch 16-year-old Georgia Groome, from Nottingham, as a star in the making.

She plays Georgia – the schoolgirl who goes ‘boy-stalking’ with her mates and dreams of winning the heart of the local ’sex god’.

Gurinder’s film, which she wrote with husband Paul Mayeda Berges, takes on Hollywood’s teenage girl genre movies, like Mean Girls and Clueless, and gives them a perfect English pitch.

It’s well-paced, funny and genuinely touching. I liked Georgia telling her dad ‘This isn’t the Middle Ages – or the Seventies, as you call it,’ or when she describes her dimwitted friend Jas as being ‘half-girl, half-turnip’.

And Georgia brings tremendous honesty and humour to the screen in her role as a 14-year-old from Eastbourne who has never been kissed.

Every schoolgirl, past and present, will, I guess, recognise the DNA of this dilemma as Georgia works through a snogging scale before she stands any chance of landing Robbie, the ‘hottie’ in question (played winningly by Aaron Johnson).

So as not to frighten parents, Paramount Films has gently tweaked the title of Louise Rennison’s brilliant novel from Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging to the safer … And Perfect Snogging.

In any case, this isn’t Blackboard Jungle: there are no knives, no one does a Juno and no one smokes skunk.

But the movie’s still hot stuff and the rest of Georgia’s cast mates, who include Eleanor Tomlinson, Sean Bourke and Kimberly Nixon, are all people the camera likes.

The teens have to endure some agonising moments on the path to blissfulness.

‘I think we have it worse because boys care less,’ Georgia insisted when we got on to the topic of school-yard dating.

She’s probably right, although one poor lad in the film, known as Dave The Laugh, does get treated rather badly by Georgia.

Still, the 16-year-old is admirably down-to-earth in her attitude to impending stardom.

Georgia, who was a mean rugby and football player before she turned to acting, told me that she never went into showbusiness for the fame and money.

She was cast in Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging after making the acclaimed independent film thriller London To Brighton – all the earning from which went into a trust fund.

‘I’ve not touched any of the money. It’s in a bank and it’s there till I’m 21. That’s what I’ve decided.

‘I don’t need a car, because I’m not old enough to drive. I’ve got a phone, my iPod and a laptop. I’m lucky that I’ve got parents who make sure I have what I need,’ Georgia told me. ‘I’d rather save it till I do need it.’

Georgia, who took 12 GCSEs and next term will study three AS-level subjects, is wary of all the hype and nonsense surrounding showbusiness and said she has been shocked at how the likes of Keira Knightley are treated just because of their weight and looks.

‘I’m quite happy with who I am,’ Georgia told me. ‘I think it must be very difficult for her [Keira] because she’s naturally skinny and it’s, like, just let her be! If she wasn’t eating properly she couldn’t keep going at the rate she does.

‘You are what you are, and I’d rather be myself than try and be what I’m not.’

Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging has its world premiere in London on July 16 (Georgia already has her gown!) and it goes on release on July 25.