The Hairy Bird (also released as Strike! and All I Wanna Do) is a 1998 film written and directed by Sarah Kernochan and starring Kirsten Dunst, Gaby Hoffmann , Lynn Redgrave, and Rachael Leigh Cook.

The film is set during the early 1960s, at the fictional "Miss Godard's Preparatory School for Girls"; the setting is based loosely on Kernochan's experiences at Rosemary Hall during those years. Redgrave plays the headmistress of the school, students of the school are played by Dunst, Hoffman, and Cook, among others.

The first part of the film provides a glimpse into life at an elite New England boarding school during the period between the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the first appearance of The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show; as the story progresses, the comedy becomes broader when the school's precarious financial situation forces it to consider a less-than-equals merger into a coeducational institute.

The song "The Hairy Bird" plays during the film's end credits; the song was written by Kernochan and sung by a group which includes Kernochan and five of her Rosemary Hall classmates, including Glenn Close.

External links and references

• Redeemable Film's webpage for All I Wanna Do
• Script for the film, in PDF format, from the director's website
• Lyrics and MP3 for the title song, also from the director's website
• Girls school rules, a May 2000 interview about the film from Salon.com