CATRIONA PAUL at the movies.

THERE IS A teen movie market which rakes in cash every time school’s out. Following the success of Freaky Friday, director Mark S. Waters brings Mean Girls to the same target audience. Word’s out that it’s pretty good. Monday saw an audience packed with teenage girls and a screening with a sense of the pyjama party. Thankfully, Mean Girls is genuinely funny, but is there an audience for it beyond teenage girls?
  
Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan, star of Freaky Friday) is the new girl in school, particularly clueless about the unwritten social rules, given her home schooling in Africa. She is befriended by The Plastics, the A-list clique of beautiful, bitchy girls headed by Regina George (Rachel McAdams, also starring in The Notebook). Then, Cady makes the mistake of falling for Regina’s ex, Aaron (Jonathan Bennett), which unleashes all manner of scheming and back-stabbing.
  
High school is recreated masterfully and humorously. Tina Fey, who wrote the screenplay (and also stars as teacher Ms Norbury), was a writer on Saturday Night Live for long enough to ably adapt Rosalind Wiseman’s book into a slick and spikey script. Cady is given a plan of the cafeteria which details all the cliques, including among others, the Asian Nerds, the Cool Asians, “the girls who eat their emotions”, and the weird Art Crowd who decorate each other with sliced meats.
  
It all culminates with the Spring Fling dance, and the release of the Burn Book – an annual kept by the Plastics recording all their bitchy thoughts about classmates and teachers alike.
 
For some older viewers who suffered at school, this film seems to have acted as a form of catharsis. More likely, you’ll laugh, wonder at the timeless truth that teenage girls are mean, and be grateful school’s over. Mean Girls – good for teenagers, and thanks to the superior writing, good for grown ups too.
  
MEAN GIRLS
General release

Director: Mark S. Waters
Writing: Rosalind Wiseman (book); Tina Fey (screenplay)
Stars: Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, Amanda Seyfried, Tina Fey, Lizzy Caplan, Tim Meadows, Daniel Franzese, Jonathan Bennett
Certificate: 12A
Running Time: 97 min
Country: USA
Year: 2004
 

© Catriona Paul, 2004