Chicks With Cliques

Lunch bunch: Lohan (right) angles for a seat.

Lindsay Lohan learns the ropes in this acerbic high school comedy.

by Cindy Fuchs

When Cady (Lindsay Lohan) attends her first day of high school, she’s startled to see just how strictly the other kids adhere to their habits. This leads to one of Mean Girls’ repeated metaphors: As she’s spent her childhood being homschooled by her anthropologist parents in Africa, Cady envisions her new classmates as inhabitants of a "wild" habitat. Under her narration, they turn into subjects in a Discovery Channel special, scampering, growling and pouncing, as if scrapping for access to the water hole.

The Chicago ’burbs, it turns out, are not so different from Cady’s previous experience. Still, her ability to read social signs is somewhat less acute than she once assumed. Luckily, she’s soon adopted by fellow mavericks, lesbian goth Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and flamingly gay Damian (Daniel Franzese). They helpfully draw her a virtual map of the cafeteria terrain, pointing out the "Asian Nerds," the "Varsity Jocks," the "Cool Asians," the "Unfriendly Black Hotties." Looking out over her new environment, Cady wonders whether she will ever fit in.

Most aggressive among the packs is the Plastics, comprised of Queen Bee Regina (Rachel McAdams) and her wannabe minions Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) and Karen (Amanda Seyfried). When Regina takes a liking to "new meat" Cady, Janis and Damien send her forth on a mission to infiltrate the enemy pod and return with information. Little does Cady know that Janis has a personal history with Regina, or that she will develop her own personal investment, in the form of a crush on Aaron (Jonathan Bennett), Regina’s ex, whom this uber-mean-girl immediately repossesses once she perceives Cady’s interest.

Directed by Mark Waters (Lohan’s Freaky Friday), Tina Fey’s script reveals the multiple ways that kids mimic "grownup" behaviors, even as they resist them. (The script is based on Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees & Wannabes, a self-help book for mothers whose concept only exacerbates the convoluted process of typing teens.) This despite the fact that the film’s grownups -- Regina’s mother (Amy Poehler), math teacher Ms. Norbury (Fey) and principal Mr. Duvall (Tim Meadows) -- also tend to be cowed by the girls.

Worried that she’s lying to everyone from her parents to her friends to Ms. Norbury (who encourages her to join math club, as per her talents), Cady’s options appear limited and daunting. My favorite acute instance shows her shocked to see Regina’s younger sister shaking her skinny little white booty in sync with Kelis’ "Milkshake" video: The child’s acting out of an excessively self-confident, and notably black female, sexuality is too much even for consummate dissembler Cady.

As per generic conventions, she’ll figure it out. Thank goodness that, as she does, dialogue and comic splats mostly reflect Fey’s acerbic worldview, such that Mean Girls provides a sidewise look at this all-too familiar movie-girl process.

Mean Girls

Directed by Mark Waters A Paramount release Opens Friday at area theaters

recommended

-- Respond to this article in our Forums -- click to jump there