Mean Girls | ||||
Mark Waters Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Lacey Chabert, Amanda Seyfried, Lizzy Caplan, Jonathan Bennett, Daniel Franzese 2004 |
It takes an ingenious, acerbic comic mind like that of "Saturday Night Live" head writer Tina Fey to make a hipper, smarter, funnier film in the teen-sploitation genre. Fey's script for the jaunty, prickly "Mean Girls" is in the vein of better-quality, mold-breaking teen comedies "Heathers" and "Clueless," but the project was inspired by "Queen Bees and Wannabes," a pop-sociology tract about female pack behavior and peer abuse in high school cliques. Fey, who also plays a bitter, divorced math teacher in "Mean Girls," used the book's ideas to launch this comedy-with-a-message about Cady, a homeschooled girl trying to fit in when she enrolls in a public high school. The movie is boosted by the charm and poise of Lindsay Lohan as Cady. A Goth girl and a gay boy initially embrace bright, unspoiled Cady as a fellow outsider. Their plan to bring down the Plastics three haughty, shallow hotties who regularly demean the rest of the students goes awry when clique infiltrator Cady falls for Aaron, ex-boyfriend of Plastics queen-bee Regina (Rachel McAdams). A few low-brow yucks aside, sarcasm is its own reward here, as in dialog suffused with Fey's cynical wit. "SNL" cast member Amy Poehler and alumni Tim Meadows and Ana Gasteyer garner laughs in adult roles. Director Mark Waters ("Freaky Friday") keeps it cool. | |||
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