David R. Walker

Archive for January 15th, 2024

Mean Girls

Director: Samantha Jayne & Arturo Perez Jr

Cast: Angourie Rice, Renee Rapp, Tina Fey, Jaquel Spivey, Lindsay Lohan, Christopher Briney, Bebe Wood, Jon Hamm, Avantika, Auli’I Cravalho, Busy Philipps, Jenna Fischer, Tim Meadows, Ashley Park, Mahi Alam

Running Time: 1 hour 52 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Never mind Barbie, watch Mean Girls, it’s hilarious and fabulous. Directing duo Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr, artfully recreated the Mean Girls musical with a witty script by comedian and actress Tina Fey in the new 2024 reboot of the original 2004 film, Mean Girls which starred Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams and Lizzy Caplan.

Angourie Rice (Spider Man: No Way Home, The Beguiled, The Nice Guys) is brilliant as naïve but manipulative teenage girl Cady Heron who arrives at North Point High School in Chicago after being home schooled by her mother on the Kenyan plains. Cady has to navigate the treacherous backstabbing world of teenage popularity and acceptance as she first befriends Janis and Damian, wonderfully played by Auli’I Cravalho and Jaquel Spivey. Janis is exploring her sexuality while Damian is just too gay to function. Into the fray at the cafeteria, the original mean girl makes her grand entrance, Regina George, blonde haired with ample bosom and a matching attitude. Regina is the IT girl with her minions and has had countless boyfriends and rules the social world of teenage awkwardness with a glittering plasticity.

Superbly played by Renee Rapp, Regina George is the ultimate teen queen, the most popular girl in high school who attracts the attention of Cady Heron who also has her eye on the gorgeous boy sitting in front of her in calculus: Aaron Samuels played by Christopher Briney.

Mean Girls is part comedy and part musical, with lots of social media drenched dance numbers and some extremely funny moments including the drama at the Winter Musical and the increasingly hilarious missteps that Cady does to try and fit in, including having house parties, trying to kiss Aaron Samuels and arriving at a Halloween party as a blood drenched bride of Dracula, looking hideous.

Tina Fey’s script is brilliant, witty and toxic, but filled with some moral lessons about treating fellow girls properly and basically not being a competitive back stabber. Even the burn book gets a treatment and all hell breaks loose until Regina gets hit by a bus! Jaquel Spivey as the very camp Damian is over the top but absolutely necessary to the script and provides some hilarious laughs.

Mean Girls is raucous and gossipy, hilarious and frivolous but ultimately a funny film filled with lots of feel good musical numbers about teenagers trying to get a grip on their new world both socially and sexually, carving their own path away from any parental guidance and capturing the current media crazed Tik Tok, SnapChat phenomenon.

The screen tension between Renee Rapp and Angourie Rice is brittle and toxic, just the way it is meant to be when the new bright girl takes on The Plastics. Audiences should watch out for appearances by Lindsay Lohan as Mathletes Moderator, Jon Hamm as Coach Carr and Tim Meadows as the exasperated Mr Duvall, the high school principal.

Aimed at teenage girls and definitely their mothers, Mean Girls honours the original film while updating the social media entrenched social politics of 21^st century young adulthood in this new glittering and hyper-stylized version for the 2020’s.

Mean Girls gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is recommended for those that enjoyed the original film and also provides a glitzy showcase for the next generation of rising film stars. Recommended viewing for those that enjoy teen comedies.