Mean Girls Review: Inventive Musical Adaptation Occasionally Hits a Flat Note

By wazup on January 10, 2024 Comments Closed / 56 views

Mean Girls Review: Inventive Musical Adaptation Occasionally Hits a Flat Note

The Pitch: “This is a cautionary tale,” we’re told in song from the beginning, as formerly-homeschooled Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) begins her first day at a real American high school, and finds herself totally overwhelmed by all the personalities on display, especially Regina George (Renee Rapp), ruling dictator of the lunch room and “a massive deal.”

There to help Cady navigate these unfamiliar waters are fellow outcasts Damian (Jaquel Spivey) and Janis (Auliʻi Cravalho), though their initial friendship gets complicated when Cady gets invited to spend more time with Regina and her fellow “Plastics” (Bebe Wood, Avantika). Damian and Janis want Cady to use her access to the Plastics to get revenge on Regina, and Cady’s on board once Regina swoops in on her crush Aaron (Christopher Briney). But will Plastic powers go to her head? If you know what day of the week we wear pink, you also know the answer to that one.

Musical Rules (Musicals Rule): Let’s start with the positives, because there’s good stuff to say about the newest iteration of Mean Girls, bringing the 2004 film back to the screen in the form of an adaptation of the Broadway musical (both written by Tina Fey). Maybe next it’ll become a TV show? Anything’s possible when the IP is profitable.

While Paramount kept the film’s trailers relatively music-free, the film itself dives right into song, which leads to one of the first big surprises: Not many film musicals have found a way to incorporate all of the elements we might love about a big Broadway production — in particular the joys of seeing stagecraft in action, as well as the loose boundaries between reality and fantasy.

Which makes the opening minutes of Mean Girls so impressive, as directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. break the fourth wall repeatedly, building in distinctly theatrical scene transitions to whisk us from a suburban garage to Kenya to the first day of school with great efficiency and visual flair. It’s the best of film and Broadway, combined.

Are people actually singing and dancing, though? Or is it all in Cady’s head? Initially, it seems like there are strong guidelines in place for musical numbers — either they’re being performed direct to camera for social media, or they’re fantastical representations of Cady’s imagination. (Essentially, the same rules of Rob Marshall’s Chicago.) However, despite those rules adding an additional level of meaning to the songs, eventually they slip away, with characters just Donald O’Connor-ing their way through the halls of the school by the end. “Why not?” one says with a little resignation. It is, after all, a musical.

Mean Girls (Paramount)