Check Out the Trailer

I’ve been curious about this film for about a year, but I just kept missing it. I recommend that you don’t miss it. It’s the best mainstream film about high school that I’ve seen in ages.

Based on a book by Rosalind Wiseman and adapted to the screen by SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE’s Tina Fey, the film has a keen eye and ear for the way teenagers interact. Cady (pronounced like Katie) Heron (Lindsay Lohan, HERBIE: FULLY LOADED) lived in Africa for most of her life and at the age of sixteen moves to Chicago and attends public school for the first time. She is very unprepared for the ways of life in an American high school with its various cliques and traditions. She finally makes friends with outsiders Janis (Lizzy Caplan, ORANGE COUNTY) and Damian (Daniel Franzese, BULLY).

They warn her of the evil that resides in the clique known as the Plastics, which is lead by Regina George (Rachel McAdams, THE NOTEBOOK). Regina has Barbie’s life, accessorized with two devoted followers Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert, TV’s PARTY OF FIVE) and Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried, NINE LIVES). Cady is accepted into the Plastics and Janis uses this as an opportunity to find out dirt.

Central to the film’s success is its extremely witty dialogue and nuanced characters. Regina is not painted out in broad strokes that would make her into a cartoonish villain. She is not all bad and not all good, which makes her even the more frustrating. Even Cady is allowed to have flaws. The film is smart about how mean behavior, if around it long enough, will eventually rub off on you.

In addition, the film doesn’t short-shift the adult characters as well. Fey plays the Math teacher Ms. Norbury with great deadpan humor. Tim Meadows (THE LADIES MAN) plays principal Mr. Duvall with great understated, comic timing. Even the more over-the-top performance from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE alum Amy Poehler as Regina’s mom has a lot of biting satire woven into the performance. And like all teen films there has to be a boy. That boy here is Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett, CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN 2), who might be the film’s only real weak point. The character serves the needs of the plot more than taking on a life of its own.

The standout performance is from rising star McAdams, who never lets her performance slip too over-the-top. The balancing act she performs is close to the skills of Peter Sellers. That’s saying a lot. Lohan has never blown me away, but she is a believable and likeable actress who has good timing and delivery for both comedy and more serious moments. Toward the end, the film lays on the message a bit thick, but in the process gets a chance to poke fun at the conventions of the genre. Consistently funny, always smart and surprisingly original throughout, the film is far more than it seems and deserves serious consideration from entertainment seekers and serious film aficionados alike.