Mean Girls Movie Review:


Based on the best-selling book “Queen Bees and Wannabes” by Rosalind Wiseman, Mean Girls is a snappy comedy about the stereotypes and adolescent pressures of fitting in during a teenager’s years of high school.

Sixteen year old Cady Heron (Freaky Friday’s Lindsay Lohan) has been home schooled for the past fifteen years while living in Africa with her biologist parents. With their recent move to a small town outside of Chicago, Cady begins school for the first time at Northshore High. She is faced with the vast type of characters of high school, especially the beautiful, fashion driven, rich, spoiled, and hateful teenage girls known as “The Plastics.” The “Queen Bee” is the most popular and depraved girl in school Regina George (Rachel McAdams), with her suck-up servant being Gretchen Weiners (Lacey Chabert) and other ditzy sidekick being Karen (Amanda Seyfried). After practically hanging out with “The Plastics” to find out their secrets for manipulation by her trendy friends Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Freanzese), Cady finds herself immersed with the girls, especially Regina. However, once Cady becomes sweet on Regina’s ex-boyfriend Aaron (Jonathan Bennett), Regina’s revenge becomes heartbreaking for her. The more and more Cady becomes emerged into the lives of “The Plastics,” the more she becomes one of them. Her math teacher, Ms. Norbury (Tina Fey), becomes concerned do to her solid grades becoming worse and worse and attempts to help her with the hardships of the high school crowd. The film is a coming-age-story that shows that not all things or people are what they seem and that the pressures of high school are only mirages, not reality.

Though vastly overboard at times, Mean Girls is still an amusing dark comedy that has a firm message for adolescents about the pressures of being a teenager and being a part of the high school setting. Though not as powerful as last year’s dramatic Thirteen or as humorous as Heathers, this film’s snappy writing and focused message outshines its numerous problems.

Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey adapted the screenplay from Wiseman’s book and also played Cady’s independent math teacher Ms. Norbury. The message from the book is the main focus, but the script also offers slapstick and dark comedic moments as well as balanced drama. All of the categories that the characters use as references are hilarious, including the term “The Plastics.” The dialogue references in Mean Girls are a lot like the ones from Clueless, except with more wit. The typical teen cliches are present, but the real downfall of the script and the film is some of the situational apologizing that takes place. Especially nowadays, when two girls or many girls get into a catfight or a near riot like in this film, the parties involved are arrested. However, in Mean Girls all of the girls are reprimanded into a student assembly where each releases their inner-anger and are somewhat forgiven. The notions are understood in reference to the film’s plot, but after being so precise with its atmosphere and characters of the high school crowd, this clumsy sequence just brings the film down.

Director Mark Waters pushes the envelope for laughs during this sequence, but it still does not work. However, for the most part the rest of the film works efficiently. Mean Girls is a teenager film, but it does have a point to it, it is not just a thrown together rehash with a couple of actors that are from the cover of Seventeen. The high school setting is a tough reality; everyone that has a high school diploma knows that. What some high schoolers do not realize is that once everyone leaves high school, that popularity does not matter, neither do rumors, clothes, cars, etc. Reality in fact sets in. Mean Girls does drive this message home over and over, but it is still evident, which is what the focus audience needs to take in. Waters, who also directed last year’s Freaky Friday, of course goes overboard constantly with different factors in the film, but he stays true to what Fey was saying throughout her script. Mean Girls is for sure no Legally Blonde or Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, the things these girls do and say are very harsh and hateful.

Lindsay Lohan continues to sparkle as the newly high school experienced Cady. Lohan is a better icon for teenage girls than most of the other ones out there, let’s hope she stays true to her craft. Rachel McAdams is perfect as the manipulating spoiled teenage beauty and leader of “The Plastics.” McAdams just keeps a reassurance posture throughout as Regina, even though her acts are just downright despicable. Party of Five’s Lacey Chabert has good intentions, but is overly emotional as Regina’s sidekick wanna-be that can not help but spill the beans each time she opens her mouth. SNL’s Tim Meadows has a few moments as the collective principal of Northshore High School and Tina Fey is also commendable in her small role as math teacher Ms.Norbury.

Mean Girls is by no means the best of its kind, but it is a film that teenage high schoolers need to see right now. The script’s miscues and overboard antics do bring it down. However, for what Mean Girls is and what it is trying to convey, it works.

Grade: B-

Joseph Tucker

Who were you in high school? Were you the jock, the spaz, the nerd, the rebel or maybe the drama queen? Back in those days we all seemed to be labeled and forced to coexist in a socially acceptable clique. And it seems for the rest of our lives we are always trying to emerge from that labeled existence. Why is that?

There have been a lot of films in recent years that have taken a look at those cliques and offered social commentary or just plain made fun of them.

In the new comedy “Mean Girls”, we are once more exposed to the lighter side of “teen” world with a revenge subplot thrown in for fun.

The film finds new-girl Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) arriving at North Shore High. Cady has been home-schooled, lived in Africa most of her life and knows very little about the teen hierarchy.

Upon her arrival, Cady quickly becomes friends with social rejects Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese) until one fateful day where Cady is asked to join the elitist group called “The Plastics” for lunch. The Plastics are three of the most popular girls in school, Regina (Rachel McAdams), Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) and Karen (Amanda Seyfried), and evil to the core.

After her luncheon with high-school infamy, Cady teams up with her socially rejected friends and devises a plan to bring down the “mean” Plastics. For their plan to work Cady must go undercover within the elite clique. Can Cady bring victory for the socially repressed? Or will the allure of high-school stardom tempt her more? And how does her feelings for Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett) play into the master plan?

“Mean Girls” probably falls closer to the just-for-laughs style of “Clueless” than the social commentary of say the darker teen-angst films of this genre like the classic “Heathers” or the crass “Jawbreakers”.

“Freaky Friday” director Mark S. Waters and brilliant SNL writer Tina Fey do craft an interesting story and do deliver a lot of laughs but the film doesn’t seem to know what direction to pursue as it enters its third act. As heroine Cady seems to be pulled to the dark-side the film’s core mission seems to be left high and dry. The laughs become fewer and a rather painful “gym” scene ensues. After that I was lost.

I wanted a really fun, zany and “mean” revenge comedy from the oodles of talent that are housed within this film. I would have loved to have seen McAdams play Regina even meaner so that we could hate her more. I also wanted to know more about the social rejects and if Cady could actually be comfortable there. In some ways I wanted the film to play more with Cady and her struggle to find a clique for her.

I really did enjoy a lot of screenwriter Tina Fey’s dialogue and how she dealt with the internal rumblings within the social elite. Fey is so talented and one of the few hi-lites of the fading late-night juggernaut, “Saturday Night Live”. She is so crassy, point-blank and hilarious on the show that I hope she will continue to do more movie scripts. I know there are a lot of comedy genres out there that could use a little Fey.

I was also surprised by how hooked I got on some of the lesser performances in the film like Tim Meadows as the principal or Lacey Chabert as the “blabber-mouth” plastic, Gretchen. These performances weren’t a leading one but still should be recognized. I liked them because they were the flipside to a “Regina” or “Cady” and gave us a new perspective on the film. Chabert was brilliant in a lot of her supporting scenes to both McAdams and Lohan.

Aside with a couple story direction problems and a flat finale, “Mean Girls” is a fun and hilarious teen comedy. Just wanted more sass.

(3.5 out of 5)

So Says the Soothsayer.

Dean Kish

This ingenious script is perhaps too smart for its own good, providing an incisive and brutally hilarious orientation to American high school culture. Sharp performances and witty direction combine to make this one of the best teen comedies in recent memory.

At age 15 Cady Heron (Lohan) has never attended school before. She was home taught by her parents while they worked in Africa, and now she's thrown in at the deep end: a Chicago high school. She's quickly befriended by outsiders Janis and Damian (Caplin and Franzese), who orient her the school's subcultures. Cady's horrified when the "plastics", the popular girls, adopt her and try to make her one of them; but Janis and Damian convince her to work as a spy to subvert leader Regina (McAdams) and her two minions (Chabert and Seyfried). Meanwhile, Cady starts falling for Regina's hunky ex (Bennett). Could be trouble, but you've got to be cruel to be cool!

The film is so packed with astute touches that it's nearly impossible to catch everything; each throwaway line of dialog, the way every sequence is directed, all of the performances are packed with deranged, pointed humour that's both revealing and incredibly unnerving as it brings all kinds of unspeakable issues to uproarious light. The filmmakers even have a fresh approach to the story's moral, avoiding sentimentality and keeping their sense of wit right to the very end.

Through it all, Lohan maintains a wonderfully energetic performance. She's like a piece of clay everyone moulds to their own interests, yet we can see the real person struggling to emerge. And each of the students around her transcends stereotypes to be both funny and telling. Even adult characters are entertainingly detailed, from teachers (Meadows' conflicted principal and writer Fey's frazzled math teacher) to parents (most notably Poehler as Regina's too-young and too-liberal mother). Waters and Fey also refuse to shy away from more serious issues, without making a huge deal about them. In this way they say much more than all those heavy-handed teen movies put together. But we hardly realise they're doing it because we're having so much fun.

Rich Cline

Growing up in Africa and been home schooled for most of her life, Cady (Lohan) wasn’t really prepared for her first experience of High School and the social classics within. Meeting Janis (Caplan) and Damian (Franzese) on her first day, they introduce her to the different sections of the school’s crowds and advice her very strongly to avoid the “Plastics”, the most popular girls in school lead by Regina George (McAdams). The problem is that Regina sees her as her new project and is drawn into her world of makeovers, shopping and constant gossip and bitching.

Lindsay Lohan takes another set towards been crowned Hollywood’s latest Teen Queen with a High School movie that isn’t the sugary sweet, coming of age comedy you’d expect her to be in.

Mean Girls harks back to the days of Clueless, Heathers and the John Hughes comedies of the 1980s were High School was a battle field of popularity and power which must be gained at any cost. This is the type of humour drains the usual bright and giddy façade of all its sparkle to become a tale of revenge, envy and the need for social power. This is dark comedy and nothing that you’d expect Lindsay Lohan to be associated with.

The actress is making a name for herself as one of the more watchable and talented performers of her generation. The doesn’t have that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth persona that many other manufactured all-American teenage girls have but she replaces this with actual talent and the possibility of actually having a career when she reaches her 20s. As narrator and star, Lohan is the driving force of the movie as we witness her character become consumed by the ideals of the Plastics at the expense of everything she holds dear and she plays this superbly.

Helping her out with this transformation is a good supporting cast headed by a completely perfect, bitchy performance by Rachel McAdams as Regina George. This is a character whose beauty hides a rotten inner core that feeds on constant attention, the suffering and degrading of others and the need for total power and influence over the entire school. A career in politics awaits. Lacey Chabert and Amanda Seyfried are also good as Regina’s entourage, Gretchen and Karen who are easily controlled and fiercely loyal.
Lizzy Caplan and Daniel Franzese as Janis and Damian are Cady’s voices of reason but they have their own hidden agendas. Jonathan Bennett is the object of Cady and Regina’s affections and nothing much more. The adult contingent is represented well by good performances from Tina Fey (who also wrote the screenplay) as the recently dumped Miss Norbury and Tim Meadows almost steals the show as the disheartened principle Mr Duval.

All these positives are brought down a notch or two by an ending that totally destroys the dark comedic themes that movie excelled in. The finale is far too Hollywood and sweet, making you feel that the powers that be made the filmmakers throw as much sugar as the could at the last few scenes to try and purge that bitter taste the film had placed in the viewer’s mouths.

This aside, Mean Girls is still a very enjoyable teen comedy that strays away from the run of the mill, unimaginative fair that has graced the silver screen lately.

Star Rating = * * *

Jamie Kelwick

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