MEAN GIRLS (2004)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
(Originally reviewed in 2005)
"Mean Girls" wants to have it both ways. It aspires to be a wicked satire on high school cliques. It also wants to be a benevolent movie with a message, a message frankly we have seen in countless teen comedies dating back to John Hughes and beyond. You can't have gobs of satirical puns and then dump some preachiness about teen identity - that's some form of cheating.
Lindsay Lohan is Cady Heron, a high school junior who has just migrated from the open African plains of home-schooling to an Illinois high school. Illinois is nothing like Africa, and Cady may as well be a fish out of water. She hasn't a shred of sarcasm and knows next to nothing about how American teenagers act or how they party. Yep, she is indeed a virgin to American pop culture. Cady makes friends rather quickly with a couple of outsiders, namely Janis (Lizzy Caplan), a lesbian goth chick, and the "too gay to function" Damian (Daniel Franzese). They tell Cady the ins and outs of high school and to stay far away from the Plastics, a shallow bunch of rich girls whose sole preoccupation in life is partying and playing mean tricks on people outside their clique. The leader of the Plastics is Regina (Rachel McAdams) who tries vainly to stay thin and maintain her status as the most popular girl in school. Her friends in this clique are none too bright.
Janis sees an opportunity for Cady to be welcomed by the Plastics and become a spy, reporting on their antics and mean, manipulative ways. Naturally, through the progression of the story, the insecure Cady falls victim to the Plastics' modus operandi. Yep, you know exactly what you are in for.
The first hour of "Mean Girls" is a fairly approximate look at today's high schools (or so I am told since I have not been in high school for almost 20 years). We see the attention paid to details such as attitude, looks, clothes, musical tastes, etc. All this is expertly and smartly written by Saturday Night Live scribe Tina Fey (who has a small, hilarious role as a math teacher). And Cady stoops to the level of these plastic girls by giving Regina a "Swedish" chocolate bar with supposedly no carbs, thus ensuring that Regina will lose rather than gain weight. Of course we know it will have the opposite effect.
Unfortunately, the movie gets bogged down by formula despite an initial resistance to clichés. Cady changes through the course of the film, even failing her math tests so she can be tutored by the cute guy she likes. But when she gets even meaner than the Plastics, the movie treats her transformation as just cause for a preachy lesson. It isn't enough that Cady changes - she has to be redeemed by her actions. To top it off, we also need a lesson in how one must be true to themselves. Excuse me, what about the Plastics?
"Mean Girls" has an appealing presence in Lindsay Lohan, though I am convinced her true potential has yet to be tapped. She is appealing and funny but not 100% convincing in showing her character's changes. Still, you can't take your eyes off her - she has a sunny star quality. I liked Rachel McAdams as Regina, the shallowest girl in school, though I think more could have been done with her character. Tina Fey generates some good laughs as the math teacher. There's also able support from Tim Meadows as the principal who can't relate to the female classmates, and Amy Poehler as Regina's mother with a boob fetish.
But something is still off in "Mean Girls" and that may be partly the director's fault. The director is Mark S. Waters, who almost made something lively and fun with the recent "Freaky Friday" remake until it also got bogged down by sentimentality. "Mean Girls," a far better film than "Freaky Friday," has spots of wickedness and a satirical, sharp spirit but it all gets shattered by an ending that negates most of the film. A little more meanness would've helped.
