I don’t know how many times I’ve slammed a high school-set movie for its portrayal of stereotypical categories of young people. The jocks, the nerds, the cool people, and so on – it’s so tiring to see them trotted out again and again without any real attempt to get underneath the surface of the cliques and stereotypes. So how can I turn around now and sing the praises of Mean Girls, a movie that revels in high school stereotypes, probably more than any other film I’ve ever seen? It’s easy, actually, as this is a movie that does exactly what I’ve criticized the others for failing to do – it digs deeper, providing insights into life for young people, while never failing to do this with edgy wit and an eye for nuance. Mean Girls is what so many others have tried to be – simultaneously real and enjoyably, sometimes even wackily, surreal and right on the mark.
Lindsay Lohan – providing the first real indication that she might just have the acting talent to make the transition to adulthood without falling into the ‘former child star’ wasteland – plays Cady Heron, new kid at a suburban American high school. She’s not just new to this school; she’s new to any school, as she has just returned from a dozen years of home schooling in the wilds of Africa with her adventuring academic parents. The transition to school life is more than a slight shock to Cady’s system, and she soon finds herself befriended by artsy school rejects Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese). Under their tutelage, Cady decides to infiltrate the supreme girls clique at school – the plastics. And when the head plastic, Regina George (Rachel McAdams) steals Cady’s heartthrob, Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett) right from under her nose, Cady is on the warpath. Working with Janis and Damian, she sets out to destroy Regina and the clique. But in the process, Cady finds herself drawn into the plastics’ world of snobbish vindictiveness. The movie’s central conflict, of course, surrounds Cady’s slide into plasticism and her eventual redemption.
The set-up is pretty standard stuff, no doubt. But director Mark Waters’ (The House of Yes, Freaky Friday) execution, ably supported by a very smart Tina Fey script (Fey, Saturday Night Live’s head writer, also co-stars), is outstanding. Based on Rosalind Wiseman’s book, this screenplay maintains an excellent balance between cutting social commentary and plain good old fashioned fun. While there’s unevenness here and there – especially when it seems that Waters can’t decide whether he wants this to be straightforward teen comedy or something distinctly surreal – Mean Girls is consistently funny and constantly looking to make perceptive observations on high school life and 21st century society. Regina’s horrific home life – featuring a painfully desperate narcissistic mother (Amy Poehler) and a neglected little sister who spends her time in front of the television, imitating music video sexuality – is just one of many places where this movie goes way beyond teen comedy and well into the realm of social commentary.
Mean Girls features numerous intriguing secondary characters, from Cady’s well-meaning but equally culture-shocked parents to the school’s mildly cynical principal (Tim Meadows), a rapping math geek (Rajiv Surendra) and many more. While we get the usual teen movie story arc and happy ending, there’s far more here for those who are looking for it, enough for Mean Girls to transcend its genre and qualify as cinema that’s both entertaining and meaningful. It will be interesting to see future work from Lohan, Waters, and especially Fey, as this was her first produced feature film screenplay.
