In the age of remakes and revivals, taking a cult classic comedy from 2004 and making it shiny and new seems like a scary proposition, which is why I was apprehensive when news of a new Mean Girls movie broke. At first I was worried we’d be seeing a sequel to the 2004 movie, set 20 years later focusing on what’s changed at North Shore High School. Thankfully, what we’re actually being treated to is a Mean Girls musical, though you wouldn’t know it from most of the advertising. An updated retelling of the original story, Mean Girls is adapted from the Broadway musical of the same name and is directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr.. With the baggage that comes along with many remakes, revivals, and adaptations, this new take on Mean Girls had to prove that it was being remade for a reason, something that returning screenwriter Tina Fey seems to have understood perfectly.
Early on, it felt like Mean Girls was going to fall into the nostalgia-bait trap of doing nothing more than reminding you of that thing you loved twenty years ago, with a few references to the original that felt like they were winking at themselves and the audience a touch too strongly. As the film went on, however, the strength of the script and cast eliminated any doubts I had about nostalgia-baiting by making this film and each role in it refreshingly unique. Yes, Damian still gets to admonish that girl that “doesn’t even go here” but Jaquel Spivey makes that line, and so many others entirely his own.
The rest of the cast of Mean Girls is, for the most part, an incredibly strong ensemble. Led by Angourie Rice (The Nice Guys, Spider-Man: No Way Home) as Cady Heron, this cast does far more than just a pale impression of those that came before them. Each actor makes their role their own but none more so than Auliʻi Cravalho (Moana) and Reneé Rapp (The Sex Lives of College Girls). As Cady’s protective yet vengeful new best friend, Auli’i’s Janis gets her chance to shine and shine and shine again throughout the entirety of Mean Girls, elevating just about every scene she’s in, especially when she gets to show off her stellar voice.
Auli’i isn’t the only standout performer at North Shore High School, however, with Reneé Rapp’s performance showing us exactly how menacing and powerful Regina George can really be. Rapp leads around her small group of Plastics, Gretchen Weiners (Bebe Wood) and Karen Shetty (Avantika), like she’s been doing it all her life, and her performance as Regina George is nothing short of brilliant. This should come as no surprise to fans of the Broadway musical, where Rapp performed as Regina George for nearly a year before the production was closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Adapting Mean Girls for a new generation should have been a challenge, but Tina Fey and the rest of the cast and crew brought the story forward into a new age with grace and wit. Mean Girls is absolutely dripping with modern fashion, aesthetic, and personality but it’s all far from on the nose. Nothing about the film feels like it’s trying too hard to sell itself to today’s teens and twenty-somethings, instead it just feels natural. The film was also able to tone down a lot of the more problematic elements of the original that were a product of the early 2000’s high school mean girl culture without anything feeling missed or obviously cut.
These updates were a huge step forward towards making Mean Girls feel like a seamless adaptation that stands on its own two feet, however this fact makes it all the more baffling that many moments of the movie were still focused on the sexualization of these high school-aged girls. I am fully aware this could just be me, as a 30 year-old man, feeling uncomfortable that a film about girls who are supposed to be minors is so focused on sexualizing them when so much other progress was made to update the story for a modern age. However, with so many other characters getting more depth (usually via musical number, more on that in just a second), I do have to wonder why the film didn’t at least take an opportunity to explore Karen more and lean into some kind of message about how it’s okay for women to feel empowered and sexy in their own skin. Instead we got a rehash of the original movie’s “sexy halloween” bit, with an accompanying musical number, “Sexy” performed by Avantika as Karen.
One thing this adaptation has going for it that helps separate it from the original is the fact that the musical numbers do a great job at preventing Mean Girls from feeling like more of the same old thing. There are plenty of chances for supporting characters like Gretchen to feel fleshed out and more like actual people than the caricatures they feel like in the original. The characters and their relationships feel real, and that goes a long way in making a film about The Plastics feel much less plastic.
Each musical number also does a great job at fitting right into the story and moving things along without feeling intrusive. When the credits rolled I was surprised at exactly how many musical numbers the film actually had, because during its runtime it didn’t feel overwhelmingly like a musical at all. None of the pieces felt overlong and all of them were catchy and clever (“Meet the Plastics” has been stuck in my head since I left the theater), with knockout performances from most of the cast, tight choreography, and gorgeous set dressing for each number really sealing the deal for me. Standout numbers include Regina’s powerfully dominating “Someone Gets Hurt” and Janis’ empowering anthem “I’d Rather be Me.”
I walked away from Mean Girls more than pleasantly surprised, and I’m excited to get a chance to see it again. Supported by strong musical numbers, even stronger performances from a stellar cast, and a seamlessly updated script, this modern, musical take on Mean Girls stands on its own next to the original in every way, and in some cases it comes across as the better film. Held back only by a few stumbles with early callbacks and a strange focus on sexualizing these high schoolers in the midst of other, better updates to a modern age, the film is a delightful spectacle that I think will resonate with a modern audience just as well as the original did back in 2004. At the risk of sounding like I’m trying to make something happen, Mean Girls was, dare I say it? So fetch.
Score: 8 out of 10
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