Mean Girls vs. Mean Girls vs. Mean Girls
What Was Bad, What Was Good, What Could Have Been Better
There was something so plastic about this movie musical.
And just like in the movie, that is not a good thing.
You know that feeling when your best friend does something stupid and you want to support them because of course you do, why not, they’re your best friend for crying out loud, but it’s something egregious like murder or wearing pink on the wrong day and you have to take a real deep breath and reevaluate the friendship?
That’s kind of what this movie musical feels like.
It’s coming from a place of love and appreciation, but it is definitely lacking something and I’ve seen enough commentary on this alone through my hours of doom scrolling Mean Girls forums to know: it is the female rage.
This movie is lacking the female rage and feels very sanitized compared to our previous iterations.
To compare it to the Broadway version almost feels unfair because they’re two different mediums, but Reneé Rapp is reprising her role in this 2024 movie as Regina George, which she formerly played on Broadway. She is THAT girl, so why shouldn’t we compare the two?
What happens is very much a loss in translation. Some things got compressed, others got discarded or replaced. This is a problem live action adaptations from animations have been suffering from in the decade. You cannot copy the story beat for beat and expect the same results, expect the same emotions to land.
It’s like plagiarism with permission. Copy the good stuff because you know it’s good, but you have to make it your own or else the teacher will fillet your ass along with your friend’s.
And then no one is happy. Least of all your friend you copied off of.
Mean Girls (2004)
Iconic. Monumental. Trend-setting.
A little on the nose and overdramatic in its portrayal of American high schools at the turn of the century, but a generational set piece that most everyone quotes or watch-hates in some way.
You can’t think of the pinnacle of American high school life without the fleeting memory of this movie.
It’s campy, it’s egregious, it’s a slice of life of the worst things America has to offer.
It is glorious.
Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) is perfect. Awkward, wanting approval, never receiving it, struggling to fit in and finally doing so but at the cost of who she is.
Regina George (Rachel McAdams) is glorious. Portraying stuck up snob here and then turning around and playing one of the most beloved romances in “The Notebook” IN THE SAME YEAR alongside Barbie’s favorite Ken, Ryan Gosling.
A host of celebrities also mark their names on this movie, like Tina Fey (also a writer for this film and every iteration thereafter), Amy Poehler, Amanda Seyfried, and Tim Meadows to name a few.
A cult classic would do it an injustice because at the very least this movie is loved by many. It steps into the mainstream with less fanfare compared to a Marvel movie but with more appreciation than indies would. And hated, for often overlapping reasons.
There are layers upon layers of social commentary embedded in this early 2000s gem of a movie, least of all the contrived hierarchy and social rules for acceptance.
At times cruel, at times mischievous, but always from the truth that they are living at this time, this movie is an American staple of the 21st century and anyone who argues otherwise will have to fight me.
Mean Girls (2018)
I like musicals.
I like music.
I usually like musicals based off movies (love love LOVE the Legally Blonde musical and I’m okay with the Shrek one. It’s just. Okay for me and that’s okay).
I’ve listened to the entirety of the Mean Girls Broadway album multiple times. It slips into my Broadway playlists on Spotify but I cannot or actually will not, watch it in person.
Partly cus I’m poor.
But also because I am not as big a fan of the music. There are some bangers (World Burn, Cautionary Tale, Apex Predator. But I’m also just a sucker for Reneé Rapp and Barrett Wilbert Weed as Regina and Janis respectively). The songs don’t come together with as clear a musical motif. It borrows song riffs like a medley of covers and the reprise of the main themes at the end don’t have the same impact as other musicals I’ve listened to.
Fantastic actors, fantastic singers, fantastic performers all around, but the core of a musical is the music. And for me, it didn’t sound as great as it could have been.
But I do know this is one of Broadway’s beloved new kids, so what am I missing?
Mean Girls (2024)
Love the diversity. Love Janis (Auli’i Cravalho), Damian (Jaquel Spivey), Regina (Reneé Rapp), and Gretchen (Bebe Wood).
Janis’ I’d Rather Be Me is a phenomenal one-shot and is so cinematic and gorgeous. That is doing the medium justice.
Regina’s World Burn is so beautifully shot as to be distracting from what she is saying and doing. She looks like a defeated villain, one who has seen the error of her ways. But the lighting and her subtle face acting says otherwise. It’s fantastic.
All of the characters become sympathetic in the way that they are portrayed. Everyone except Cady Heron (Angourie Rice). Again, even in the original she is less than perfect and a rather stuck-up bitch, but here… she has no personality. Her singing is flat (though Rice CAN sing, her performance is lacking but that seems tied more to the direction and character than her actual ability).
The way that the songs fit into the movie is messy. They will suddenly and without warning pop into song. The lights will dim or transition into a spotlight and all the NPCs in the movie will fall to the way side as Cady has her moment. Which works great in theater and could work really well in film, but felt very out of place here. Not well-established, visually confusing, lacking any grounding element for if this is reality or a fantasy.
I loved the ending they included of the bathroom scene. IYKYK LOL. But apparently that isn’t even a new scene! It was originally cut from the 2004 movie and they added it to the ending of this one!
The use of social media is off-putting but relatable, but it does date this movie and will keep it locked in time to this specific moment when Tik Tok and livestreaming is all the rage.
And that is what is missing: the female rage. Cady isn’t angry enough. Gretchen isn’t angry enough. Regina isn’t angry enough and Janis isn’t angry enough.
These women are angry at being perceived a certain way. They are angry that whatever they do, is never good enough, not when you compare it to what is often white and right and clean.
They are angry at being forced into a performance not of their choosing, so let them be angry.
You want to sell me on emotion? Then sell me on emotion. Give me the good, the bad, the ugly. Make me feel their desperation and their hatred because anything less is just flaccid disappointment.
I think a big failure stems from the reboots only…rebooting. What new thing does it bring to the table? How is it different from the past iterations, while still paying tasteful homage to its origins?
The 2024 movie musical had a classically diverse cast and an emphasis on social media (which was a little cringe, but I think all of social media is cringe) but it didn’t perform the musical numbers in the movie as well as it should have been done, considering its Broadway origins.
Individual performances were phenomenal. Certain jokes landed to howling laughter and certain interpretations were great. Cohesively, it did not work. If you stripped away the duct tape holding this movie together, it might very well fall apart.
If you took this movie as a stand alone, this-is-it, there is nothing from before, it is a fun and entertaining movie, which is the goal of every film hitting theaters in this day and age. What feels like a money grab stems from the poor adaptation of musical elements (and certain performances) that makes what should have been a hit, a bit of a disappointment.
[Not to mention the fact that their marketing team knew it would struggle if they went hard on the musical aspect of the movie, so they omitted that fact in their PR and it shocked many people who went to watch this reboot for Cady Heron and her Mean Girls and got slapped with awkward musical numbers instead.]
I still had a lot of fun watching this and eating my (smuggled) In-N-Out fries in an empty theater, but as a fan of the previous versions, I did feel a burning outrage at how poorly this was translated to the big screen.
What were your thoughts on this film?