Mean Girls Review: A Totally Fetch Movie Musical Loses Its Mean Streak, And That's Grool
1999 was the apex of teen girl cinema, with over a dozen new releases now hailed in "girl world" as seminal classics. But that year also brought the financial juggernaut of "American Pie," and Hollywood realized that there was serious money to be made with boy-centered sex comedies. Pair that with the horrific tragedy at Columbine High School, and suddenly problems like a boy pretending to like you for a payday felt frivolous, and edgier fare felt too dangerous to be entertaining. Teen girl movies didn't outright disappear, but they certainly fell out of popularity and became niche, "chick flick" fare more than ever. The genre has never fully recovered and continues to fight for respect and relevance 25 years later. Fortunately, there have been culture-shifting pop cultural juggernauts that remind Hollywood (and society at large) that teen girls are and will forever be the true tastemakers.
And in 2004, one movie raised a devil-may-care eyebrow and said, "Get in losers, we're changing pop culture forever." I'm talking of course, about "Mean Girls." Arriving in theaters the spring of my freshman year in high school, I was the target audience for "Mean Girls" and have followed the film's permeation of our societal consciousness ever since. I still tell my best friend "Boo, you whore" whenever plans change, I know every lyric of the Broadway musical, and I even taste-tested the "Mean Girls" promotional Toaster Strudels with neon pink frosting. To put it simply — the limit of this film's influence on my life does not exist.
This is to say that Paramount's new take on "Mean Girls," incorporating both elements of the iconic film and the stage musical, had some pretty high heels to feel. Fortunately, the film is a fun and totally fetch amalgamation of both eras of Cady, Regina, Gretchen, Karen, Janis, and Damian.
Everything old is new again
Comparing the movie musical to the original is simultaneously necessary and absolutely futile. The thing about teen movies is that they are often our most honest cultural time capsules — films that are looking to capture the zeitgeist of the exact moment, without any attempt to remain timeless. The fashion, slang, music, and pop culture references are a reflection of the coolness du jour, which is why we're often so nostalgic for them. 2024's "Mean Girls" is loaded with plenty of fan service for fans of the original, but the film does so at the expense of the Broadway show. It's a necessary compromise to hopefully appease multiple generations of fans, but I personally would have preferred it if they just went all-in on the musical.
The story beats are the same, with Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) entering the terrifying jungle of high school after a lifetime of homeschooling. After being taken under the wing of queer outcasts Janis (Auliʻi Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), Cady is quickly targeted as the pet project of Queen Bee Regina George (Reneé Rapp), with her sidekicks Gretchen Weiners (Bebe Wood) and Karen Shetty (Avantika) in tow. Janis and Damian see this as the perfect opportunity to spy on the popular clique but when Regina shows her true colors and betrays Cady, her friendship with the Plastics turns into a revenge plot.
Part of the longevity of "Mean Girls" was its unapologetic presentation of how girls can be, well, mean, which has been seriously nerfed for this new take on the material. But at the same time, the teenage landscape is not the way it was in 2004. Teenagers can still be awful and high school can still be hell, but the execution of that ferocity has evolved. As much as it irked a part of my brain to hear "Regina George is a fugly cow" instead of "fugly slut," this is a reflection of an evolving culture. This is "Mean Girls" for the youngest members of Gen Z and the oldest of Gen Alpha.
She is Regina George and she is a massive deal
Although it feels like "Mean Girls" has lost a bit of its bite at times, Reneé Rapp proves why she is Regina George and a massive deal. Rapp has been generating a massive fanbase since her 2018 Best Performance by an Actress win at the Jimmy Awards, which led to the role of Regina George on Broadway, a leading role on the HBO series "The Sex Lives of College Girls," and her debut album, "Snow Angel," which earned the biggest first week for a debut album by a female artist in 2023. However, this is her first studio picture, and for the love of Glen Coco, she makes every second count. Her voice is and has been undeniable, but like Rachel McAdams before her, Regina George is going to make her a household name.
Bebe Wood is a pretty solid Gretchen Wieners and manages to sneak out of Lacey Chabert's unmistakable wild shadow more often than not, and Avantika makes the delightfully daffy Karen (made famous by Amanda Seyfried) all her own. The Halloween costume song "Sexy" is an absolute scene-stealer, as are the updated lines to showcase her airheaded observations. Tina Fey seems to be using "Mean Girls" as a way to show that she's learned from her past problematic "jokes" by stripping the numerous racially motivated punchlines, but unless you know the original film's quotes by heart, you probably won't even miss them.
Angourie Rice takes a sweeter, more innocent approach to Cady Heron, which was a smart call to put some distance between her and the once-in-a-lifetime teen starlet juggernaut of Lindsay Lohan. When she looks at Christopher Briney's Aaron Samuels, she beautifully glows with that uncontrollable electricity of your first high school crush.
Redemption for Janis and Damian
As is the case with the Broadway show (featuring music by Jeff Richmond), Janis and Damian also serve as the narrators for the film. They break the fourth wall, introduce musical numbers that exist only in the minds of the characters, and provide some of the best one-liners of the whole movie. "I'd Rather Be Me" is my favorite song in the show, and Cravalho completely knocks it out of the park. She and Spivey (known by fellow theatre fans for "A Strange Loop") are the rightful successors to Lizzy Caplan and Daniel Franzese. The duo is also presented with much more character development (especially Janis), which will hopefully shut up all those clowns trying to make the "Janis was the real villain" discourse a thing. Janis is finally an out and proud lesbian, something the 2004 original could have never gotten away with, especially with Damian already hitting the "gay character quota." My god, how did any of us get out of the aughts alive?
Spivey and Cravalho are both absolute vocal powerhouses and if the entire industry isn't frantically writing projects specifically for them after this film, something is seriously wrong. Spivey has what is, in my opinion, the toughest role in the show because Franzese's line deliveries are embedded in the minds of anyone with even a passing knowledge of "Mean Girls." And yet he completely commands moments like "She doesn't even go here!" and breathes new life to the ultimate gay BFF character. They've also got some incredible updates to their art-freak costuming, arguably sporting the best looks of the entire film.
An ending that finally works
I've written before here at /Film about how the original ending of "Mean Girls" has never worked for me, because this idea of girl world at peace always felt like it came out of left field and not authentically grown out of the ecosystem of North Shore High School. However, in this newer "Mean Girls" with a little less venom and a little more empathy for its characters — by seeing them beyond high school archetypes and more like people — I buy into Cady cracking apart her plastic tiara at the Spring Fling dance hook, line, and sinker. Honestly, "Mean Girls" 2024 is at its best when its own thing and not beholden to the original film, or even the Broadway show.
"Mean Girls" is an entirely different animal compared to the apex predator of the original film, but it holds its own in the constantly evolving biosphere of teen cinema. When I left the theater, I thought I wished the film was as searing as the original, lamenting how "soft" this story felt this time around. But as soon as the thought entered my brain, I thought about seeing the original film as a high school freshman and sitting next to my mother, who joked about "Heathers" being better and edgier. If this version of "Mean Girls" is an accurate reflection of the evolution of the cruel politics of high school, it's a sign that we're moving in the right direction.
/Film Rating: 8 out of 10.