The popular clique from which this movie derives its title – ‘The Plastics’ – are really mean. Sure, they’re mean to outsiders: you know, the other cliques who don’t fit in, comprised of stereotypes like nerds, jocks, burnouts, band geeks, etc.; but they reserve their really biting, no holds barred aggressiveness for each other. You can’t out-and-out fight, the film’s heroine, Cady, observes. Attacks have to be clandestine, underhanded, unsuspected and invisible. The film, directed by Mark Walters and based on a book by Rosalind Wiseman, wants to observe Cady, observe this group, letting us laugh while making broad statements about high school popularity and its caste system in the process.
“Mean Girls” positions itself as another ‘new kid in school’ comedy/drama, but, with smart scriptwriting and performances, becomes something more. The film’s lead, Cady (pronounced ‘Katie’ she tirelessly tells new classmates), is played by Lindsay Lohan. Lohan, who was sweet in 1999’s “The Parent Trap” redux as well as “Freaky Friday” alongside scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, takes a difficult role and runs with it. She’s tasked with appearing at first a fish out of water at a new school, then a slow-to-make-friends shy girl, to one who is adopted by the school’s most popular clique, The Plastics. By the end Cady is no longer recognizable even to herself. Lohan makes us believe the transition, an act that could have fallen apart with a weaker actress.
I suppose “Mean Girls” is almost a hyped up, overdramatized version of “10 Things I Hate About You.” It’s as if the former took the latter’s opening sequence – where a key character explains the various cliques at the school – and decided to make an entire film about it. The various cliques are well represented, and, oddly, Cady doesn’t want to be part of any of them. She’s spent a majority of her childhood being homeschooled by her parents in Africa on safari. She doesn’t know popular songs or movies. She tells the girls incredible things about her life and they reply ‘shut up!,’ the modern lingo for ‘oh my god!’ or ‘get out!’ Cady thinks they’re telling her to stop talking. She doesn’t understand.
The Plastics are played by actresses such as Lacey Chabert, Amanda Seyfried, and their self appointed leader, Rachel McAdams. Well, maybe she’s not self appointed. During the film’s run, when McAdam’s Regina is sidelined for a bit, they look to Cady to fill her shoes. The Plastics can’t exist without a center, sharing common goals, desires, and personalities. Even when they hate each other, they still want to be liked. Cady observes with interest, “The weird thing about hanging out with Regina was that I could hate her, and at the same time, I still wanted her to like me.”
Jonathan Bennett and Lindsay Lohan in a scene from “Mean Girls” (Paramount Pictures, 2004).
“Mean Girls” hits the high notes of high school popularity, while breaking it up with humor in appropriate places. Certain scenes pack a humorous punch (such as conference calls between The Plastics where one or the other doesn’t know they’re on a conference call), while others between Cady’s first friends (Lizzy Caplan and Daniel Franzese) contain witty dialogue. “Darian’s too gay to function,” Caplin’s Janis jokes of their friend. But as most inside jokes have the tendency to do, it’s not until later, when Cady is a full-fledged member of The Plastics and has forgotten her friends, that her utterance of this same joke is not endearing, but insulting.
The film’s buffered with good supporting roles, from Cady’s parents played by Neil Flynn and Ana Gasteyer, to the school principal (Tim Meadows) to Cady’s math teacher, played warmly by Tina Fey. Fey, who has a talent for uproarious laughter surprised me; she’s toned down and relatable, and turns in a rather serious performance here.
“Mean Girls,” apart from its thorough analysis of clique culture, is also smart when it comes to touching on the parts of teenage psyche that often get overlooked. The quest for popularity that often brings mal-intentioned results, the sometimes soul crushing things we do to gain popularity that we later regret (the film’s most poignant as Cady, a math whiz, purposefully becomes deficient in the class to gain the attraction of her crush, a boy named Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett), who later resents her for it. These aren’t one offs; we’ve experienced these kinds of things in our own high school careers (or, if you’re there now, may strike a chord with current experiences).
The film’s not perfect, and suffers from some cliché and standard tropes – but, as a high school film, isn’t really a detriment. It’s funny, and rather than labor over the usual points of romance, scholastics, and angst, takes the time to shine a hard light on creating an identity, and how trying to fit into predetermined cliques can derail this process. Its ending – involving prom kings, queens, and speeches rises to the peaks of cringe-worthiness, but somehow reigns it in before doing too much damage.
“Mean Girls” covers familiar material but updates it for modern audiences. It’s comedic, introspective, and watches well. Lohan’s its unsung gem; but the rest of the film is okay too.
– by Mark Ziobro
