Linsay Lohan stars as Cady, a 16 year old girl who had been
living in Africa all of her life with her researcher parents. When her mother
gets a professor's job in the States, Cady--who had been home-schooled up until
now--goes to high school for the very first time. She is instantly exposed to
the harsh cruelty of school life that is epitomized in "The Plastics", a super
elite, A-list clique made up of three shallow girls who dominate school life.
Although Grethen (Lacey Chabert) and Karen (Amanda Seyfried) are members of The
Plastics, it is Regina (Rachel McAdams)--the Queen Bee of mean--who is the
leader. When The Plastics take an interest Cady, inviting her to sit with them
in the cafeteria, the sweet-hearted Cady is initially reluctant to join them.
However, her new best friends Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damien (Daniel Franzese),
two outsiders who have felt the wrath of The Plastics in the past, encourage
Cady to join them in an effort to dig up some dirt on these perfect princesses.
But the deeper Cady goes undercover, the more caught up she becomes in the
superficial Plastic world. She falls in love with a boy in her class named Aaron
(Jonathan Bennett),
who turns out to be a former boyfriend of Regina's. Once Regina discovers this,
she begins a devious little feud with Cady that escalates between them into
all-out war. At first she was merely obsessed with getting the dirt on this trio
of tyrants, yet Cady soon loses her innocence as she becomes the very thing that
she set out to destroy: a backstabbing little brat. Based on the book by Rosalind Wiseman,
Mean Girls is written by Saturday Night
Live veteran Tina Fey (who also stars as math teacher Ms. Norbury), and it's a witty and funny view of high school as seen from
the female point of view. It does a great job in capturing the heart-rending
viciousness of everyday high school life, and amply shows how damaging the whole
clique scene can be without getting too heavy-handed. The acting is superb
across the board, and Mark Waters' steady direction keeps things moving at a
brisk pace.
The DVD special feature include the usual "making of" featurettes, along with a
commentary by Director Waters, Tina Fey, and Producer (as well as SNL honcho)
Lorne Michaels. There are also outtakes (which are accompanied by an annoying
music soundtrack), and theatrical trailers. Mean Girls is an enjoyable romp;
it's the 00's answer to Clueless and 16 Candles. --SF
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