Mean Girls

B

Apparently based on a serious book, Tina Fey (Saturday Night Live's head writer and starring as a teacher) wrote the screenplay which includes a lot of funny material as well as some intermittant sight gags. At heart is a story about a girl, Cady (pronounced Katie), who has never been exposed to the social order of high school ("you're like a martian" says one friend). She is befriended by some social outcasts who she likes but, because she is pretty, is taken under the wings of a trio of the most enviably pretty girls in school ("the plastics"). The social outcasts convince her to stay friends with the plastics so they can sabotage them.

What follows isn't really a funny story and I think it works because the framework is essentially dramatic. The comedy is just thrown on top. This isn't a mindless comedy, it is one with a plot and a point.

It's not great filmmaking, it may not even measure up to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but it is still enjoyable with some decent insight. This is a small cute movie that doesn't try to be more but doesn't settle for being trite either. Roeper of Ebert and Roeper felt like the girls weren't all that mean but I think the movie makes a lot of generalizations already and accentuating the differences between the different groups would just leave you with a bunch of flat stereotypes. They keep everything realistic: nobody is plotting to kill a teacher or really even physically hurt anyone.

Tina Fey and Tim Meadows of SNL turn in good small performances and have some of the funnier lines. Lindsey Lohan does a good job in her role. The rest of the supporting high schoolers are all playing stereotypes (including the mandatory gay friend that all girls seem to have in the movies) so they don't have a chance to really shine, but are adequate.

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