Plot: Cady (Lindsay Lohan), a 16-year-old who has been homeschooled her entire life up until this point and lived in Africa, is attending public school for the first time. She learns about various cliques, including a clique known as the Plastics. Chaos soon ensues as Cady teams up with fellow outcasts to bring down the Plastics. But as she progresses more and more into ruining the Queen Bee, Regina (Rachel McAdams), Cady's act soon becomes a reality.
Review: I like this movie. It's probably one of the best teen movies I've ever seen and I'll tell you why.
Firstly, what I like about the film's plot is that it's totally relatable. It's relatable in terms of the characters and the situations in the film. We're reminded of the cliques and people in high school. When watching this, we can point out and say I knew someone like this or someone did something like this. Some might see this as a chick flick and a movie that only girls can relate to because the main focus about this movie for the most part is a high school clique. But it's much more than that. The film's story has a human element to it. It's about surviving. And in this film, Cady is trying to survive high school.
The acting is fantastic. This is considered Lindsay Lohan's breakout role and for good reason. She's incredible in this. This was her first film outside of Disney and a different demographic saw Lindsay's acting abilities and could see she was more than just another Disney kid.
Rachel McAdams wasn't really that well known when the film was released (The Notebook was released a few months after this came out. But some may recognize from The Hot Chick). Rachel McAdams' Regina is a cruel, vindictive person and you don't really sympathize with her at all. But McAdams' performance is still entertaining to watch nonetheless.
We have two other Plastics in the movie. Amanda Seyfried plays Karen and is absolutely hilarious in this as a naive and dim-witted teenager. You would hope that Karen is smarter than she appears to be and she really isn't, which I like because normally it turns out the seemingly dumb character is actually much smarter than they appear to be.
We also have Gretchen, played by Lacey Chabert. I find Chabert to be very funny. Gretchen is just as mean and cruel as Regina to an extent, but she's more sympathetic I find.
Lizzy Chaplan plays Janis and she is one of my favorite characters in the movie. Janis knows her flaws and she admits them, unlike many characters in the movie, including Cady. So that's why I like her.
Tina Fey plays the math teacher and I think she did a good job. I do wish we saw a little bit more of Tina in this. Tim Meadows plays the principal and I like his portrayal of a frustrated man.
Tina Fey is one of my favorite writers. She was still working at Saturday Night Live at this point and showed her writing chops to a bigger audience. The dialogue in this film is hilarious and makes you laugh nonstop. When I watch this, I compare it to the dialogue of Juno. Although there are differences, both films have a funny, sarcastic-toned dialogue which can also be very moving and effective. That's what made this film and Juno memorable to me. The dialogue written by the brilliant writers.
When I watch teen comedies, I feel that they've purposely dumbed the movie so that teenagers will like it. I mean some teen comedies are so dumbed down that it's ridiculous. But Mean Girls is an exception. Mean Girls is funny and smart, a combination that is rare in the vast majority of modern teen films.
Rating: 4/5
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