Nostalgia is a funny thing. We can all love a classic, but the things we appreciate most about said classic can vary wildly based on personal taste. So, when a classic is sold back to us with some of the edges sanded off, it can be tricky for an entire target audience to get on board right away. In the case of this new version of Mean Girls, — an adaptation not only of the beloved and influential 2004 high school comedy, but also of the Broadway musical which got on its feet in 2017 — the film doesn’t always rise above its inherent nostalgia factor, but, mostly thanks to the musical numbers, it manages to stand alone as its own fun experience overall.
I saw the stage musical here at the Fox Theatre in 2022, so I was fairly familiar with the songs going in. One thing I really appreciate about the score is that it manages to keep things light while also emphasizing some emotional beats and concepts which are glossed over in the 2004 film. The lightness does end up removing a lot of the dark streak in Tina Fey’s original script (itself an adaptation of the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman), but what is added through the lyrics gives this version new dimensions which are thoughtful and often surprising. As new girl Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) meets and destroys the “plastics” clique from within, each member gets their own musical number, and although some of them steer more toward comedy, you could argue that this format excels at giving each of them more emotional space than the first film does.
For example, when queen bee Regina George (Reneé Rapp) steals her ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney) back from a crushing Cady, she sings “Someone Gets Hurt,” a song about the unbalanced gender-role expectations surrounding flirting. The song, set at a raucous party, also delves into the question of whether all of Regina’s pettiness and manipulation is just to keep up appearances. Later on, a fed-up Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) — Cady’s confidant and co-conspirator of the social manipulation — delivers “I’d Rather Be Me,” a defiant and well-earned expansion of the character’s short speech before her trust fall in the first film, denouncing all the judgment and cruelty high school brings.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Cravalho and Jaquel Spivey as Janis’ “too gay to function” counterpart Damian are the clear top-level highlights of this film. Their singing and comedic timing really shines in a cast full of solid-to-great singers and comic actors. Everyone is giving their all, but as the narrators of the story, Cravalho and Spivey bring a fresh energy to most of the proceedings, an energy which is sapped when the film relies too heavily on its predecessor’s comedic beats (often not delivered nearly as well here).
The film falters most often when it isn’t in musical mode. The singing, choreography, set design, and camerawork involved in the musical numbers is endlessly fun and invigorating. When music isn’t the priority, though, it borders on some really shoddy television-level production. For instance, when Cady gets tipsy at a party, the camera has to wobble uncontrollably to let you know how tipsy she is instead of letting the comedy of that scene play out on its own. The camera is also far too in love with closeups when not in musical mode. Though it’s not the selling point, there was a certain assuredness to the visual style of the first film. Here, we hit far too many valleys for how great the peaks are.
All things considered, this Mean Girls ultimately doesn’t live up to how tonally perfect and sturdy the first film is, but it doesn’t necessarily need to. There was a bit of a different tone set by the musical, so if you can accept this as an adaptation of that, you’ll have a nice time. But if you asked me to compare them, the 2004 film is certainly more fetch. And no, I won’t stop trying to make “fetch” happen. | George Napper
