Mean Girls review: A grool musical update of the teen classic

At first glance, successfully remaking Mean Girls seemed about as likely to happen as “fetch.”

But thankfully, the new iteration — complete with a fresh screenplay from Tina Fey (based on her Broadway book...based on her 2004 movie script) — manages to make life with the Plastics pretty darn fantastic.

The story is beat for beat the same as the 2004 hit film, following Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) as she attempts to adjust to life in a midwestern high school amidst cliques, gossip, and stolen boyfriends. With her new friends, Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), Cady hatches a plan to ruin the life of Regina George (Reneé Rapp) and her fellow Plastics, Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika). But things go off the rails when Cady herself falls prey to the lure of hot pink power dynamics, particularly as she and Regina vie for the attention of popular boy Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney).

Though the core story remains the same, Fey wisely updates the script for a new generation of teens. Many of the script’s most oft-quoted lines (“My father was the inventor of toaster strudel,” “Get in loser, we’re going shopping,” and “The limit does not exist”) are either eliminated, worked into the lyrics of a musical number, or played deliberately to avoid calling attention to them.

The combined efforts of Fey, directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., and the cast pay appropriate deference to the original film, while also striving to make a movie that exists entirely on its own terms. Indeed, many of the jokes here feel like they could have been alt lines that Fey filed away 20 years ago and reworked now.

Teen culture has changed drastically since 2004 (largely, for the better) as Gen Z has worked to make one’s “growing pains” a time marked by far more inclusivity and acceptance than generations prior. As such, some of the script’s more problematic aspects have been eliminated. Many changes are welcome (we’re fine not to make a joke out of a teacher sleeping with a student, even if Jon Hamm is wasted as Coach Carr). But to some degree, this robs Mean Girls of its teeth. The Plastics and their tactics are meant to be as feral as the African plains. But things like the notorious Burn Book pages calling Regina a “cow” instead of a “slut” are disingenuous. Part of the genius of the original Mean Girls was how it captured the downright viciousness of teenage girls, and some of that predatory bite has been muzzled here.

Other social changes, particularly the absolute chokehold that social media has on pop culture and the lives of teenagers, are integrated into the plot seamlessly. Jayne and Perez direct with a steady hand, flawlessly weaving in sequences of TikTok reaction vids, Instagram comments, and more to help craft the world of North Shore High School circa 2024. Indeed, from the film’s opening moments, which frame the story’s musical stylings through the lens of an iPhone recording, Jayne and Perez take care to establish this as a musical with a distinctly modern point of view.

Despite the marketing campaign’s efforts to hide the fact that this adaptation is a musical, it very much is one. Its score, with music by Fey’s husband, Jeff Richmond, and lyrics by Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde: The Musical), is middling and largely unremarkable (like a lot of contemporary musical theater). But there are standout numbers, particularly the show’s major earworm, “Revenge Party,” which is framed as a rainbow-colored, glitter-soaked expositional montage as Janis and Damian outline their plot to Cady.

Even if the score is just okay, the numbers themselves are a delight. Jayne and Perez create a clear visual language for the world, with a garage jam session expanding out into a broader world and granting the audience a useful lens to understand the context of why characters break into song. Not since Rob Marshall and Chicago has a feature film debut shown such a confident, innate understanding of the musical genre and how to make it cinematic for a modern audience.

If Calteen bars are Cady’s secret weapon, then Mean Girls’ is its cast. That was true in 2004 and is now, though not necessarily for the same characters. The role of Cady Heron marked Lindsay Lohan's transition from child star to more adult actress as a showcase for her ample star power. In contrast, Rice is winning, if too mild-mannered, to believably sell Cady’s descent into popular girl bitchery (and on a nitpicking level, her voice is very reedy for a musical leading lady). Though major shoutout to the casting team for epic mother/daughter resemblance pairings in Rice and Jenna Fischer, as well as Busy Philipps and Rapp.

While Mean Girls kickstarted Amanda Seyfried's career and made Lacey Chabert infinitely meme-able before that was even a thing, it’s unlikely to do the same for its musical Karen and Gretchen. Wood is utterly forgettable as Gretchen, robbed of many of the character’s best lines and sidelined as the afterthought Gretchen so desperately fears she is. As Karen, Seyfried channeled her ethereal energy into comedic gold, but that doesn’t come naturally to Avantika and instead, her performance is dreadfully overacted. Playing stupid is almost as hard as playing drunk — and Avantika does not have the chops for it, her blinking deer-in-headlights expression wearing thin within her first moments on screen.

The movie’s true star is Rapp, who transforms queen bee Regina into a she-monster of epic proportions. She belts it out, Rapp’s voice as take no prisoners as her character. But it’s her decision to lean into a breathy, hyper-sexualized tone echoing Marilyn Monroe that showcases the brilliance of her tongue-in-cheek performance. If Rachel McAdams’ Regina had a cold, lethal precision to her, Rapp’s Regina is far more brash. She’s a carnivore ready to eat every girl at North Shore High for breakfast in a world that she deems made for “survival of the fittest.” Her Regina is a girl who owns her sexuality and her power while refusing to yield an inch of control. It’s a daring performance, a portrait of a master manipulator unwilling to release herself from the prison of her own popularity.

Her foil is not Cady, but instead Cravalho’s Janis, who acts as the story’s de facto narrator alongside Spivey’s Damian. The two performers elevate these roles with some major main character energy, as Cravalho shades in Janis beyond Goth outsider, making her a wounded, empathetic artist. Spivey is a delight as her sidekick with a masterful side-eye, a drama queen who lives to spill the tea. While Spivey infuses Damian with a wicked sense of humor, he also grants him a gentleness that underscores the acid-pop satire’s heart.

Cravalho delivers a powerhouse performance, and she sings her face off as Janis, particularly on her 11 o’clock number, “I’d Rather Be Me.” She brings a playfulness and buoyancy to the role that aligns with this kinder, less outré version of the story. Every moment the Moana star is on screen, it’s impossible to keep your eyes off her. She has a potent star quality that finally gets to shine in a live-action project worthy of her talents. Let us hope that her Janis is just a twinkling indication of how far she’ll go.

As it did in 2004, Mean Girls is a playground for a melange of fresh, new talent for whom we hope the limit does not exist. Did we really need another film version? No. But it’s pretty grool that the one we got is such fun. Grade: B

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