MEAN GIRLS movie poster | ©2024 Paramount Pictures

Rating: PG-13
Stars: Angourie Rice, Renée Rapp, Auli’i Cravalho, Jaquel Spivey, Avantika, Bebe Wood, Christopher Briney, Tina Fey, Jenna Fischer, Kevin Ganatra
Writer: Tina Fey, based on the stage musical by Tina Fey, based on the screenplay by Tina Fey, inspired by the book QUEEN BEES AND WANNABES by Rosalind Wiseman
Directors: Samantha Jayne & Arturo Perez Jr.
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: January 12, 2024

In the tradition of such expanding projects as THE PRODUCERS and HAIRSPRAY!, MEAN GIRLS began as a non-musical comedy film (in its case, 2004), that was adapted into a hit Broadway musical (which opened in 2018), that has now been adapted as a movie musical. Got all that?

It’s not strictly necessary to know MEAN GIRLS’s history, though it is very likely helpful that original screenwriter Tina Fey, who used Rosalind Wiseman’s nonfiction book QUEEN BEES AND WANNABES as inspiration, adapted the script for the stage play and has now written the screenplay for the MEAN GIRLS screen musical. This means that the same sensibility runs through it, aware of what is essential and what can be altered or jettisoned. As with the stage version, the music is by Jeff Richmond and the lyrics are by Nell Benjamin.

Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) has grown up in the wilds of Kenya, homeschooled by her scientist mom (Jenna Fischer). But when Cady expresses an interest in being around kids her own (teen) age, Mom accepts a university position, and Cady is enrolled in high school.

Here Cady meets best friends/social outcasts Janis (Auli’I Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), who take the new girl under their wing. To Janis and Damian’s astonishment, school queen/alpha mean girl Regina George (Renée Rapp) also takes an interest and invites Cady to join her inner circle, slavishly devoted Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and dizzy Karen (Avantika).

Janis would like Cady to use her position to get incriminating dirt on Regina, as there’s been a feud going on there since sixth grade. Cady doesn’t want to disappoint new pals Janis and Damian, but is reluctant to betray her other new buddies. Then Regina deliberately messes with Cady over a boy (Christopher Briney), and Cady starts to see the upside in vengeance.

This all goes more or less where we’d expect it to go, even without the framing device of Janis and Damian singing the outline for us at the start. However, as directed by Samantha Jayne & Arturo Perez Jr., it’s all entertaining high-energy fun. Even the moments of sadness and rage get big power numbers. Rapp and Cravalho have particularly impressive voices, and everyone is perfectly cast.

One unpleasant aspect of the original film has been changed (the notion that there’s something inherently defamatory about being called a lesbian has switched to a lesbian character who has been defamed by a different kind of rumor), with no loss to the story’s cohesion. There is clever verbal byplay, jokes are never hit too hard, and, as directed by Jayne & Perez, characters bursting into song seems wholly natural.

While it’s not exactly a flaw – there’s nothing that feels like a mistake – none of the songs are especially memorable in their tunes or lyrics, although Wood gets an affecting introspective number and Cravalho’s “I’d Rather Be Me” has punch.

MEAN GIRLS doesn’t say anything new, but its messages are sound and it is consistently enjoyable.

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