My wife introduced me to "Mean Girls". She told me what a lot of people told me: "It's a lot like Heathers". In some ways, it is. Both movies are like a "Revenge of the Nerds", but when we watch, it is we, the viewers, getting revenge. We are getting our revenge on the beautiful but vapid, shallow, and narcissistic characters in the movie by having a huge laugh at their expense. The protagonists in the movie are not our heroes because they are downtrodden victims who rise up and fight back. They are our heroes because they dish out social justice to bullies and stuck up bitches by making them victims of their own ego and stupidity. Both "Mean Girls" and "Heathers" capture this zeitgeist, although "Heathers" does it a lot better, for reasons which I will explain below.
Mean Girls, for the first half of it or so, is great cynical nerd comedy. Granted, the main character, Cady, (played by Lindsay Lohan) isn't an anti-social geek or, for that matter, a victim of bullying. Rather, she is beautiful and socially adept, as well as smart. Her three "friends", Regina, Gretchen, and Karen, are as beautiful, popular, and stupid as they come. Mean Girls is at its best when Cady is exploiting that stupidity as we all observe and snicker, such as when she tricks one girl into gaining a bunch of weight by telling her that high calorie energy bars will help her lose weight.
At some point though, Mean Girls goes horribly wrong. Either Tina Fey did not have enough cynicism in her heart to make this movie the ugly picture that it should have been, or the studio didn't have the courage to let her write that screenplay. Whatever the cause, Mean Girls suddenly becomes a feel-good, "uplifting", clichéd story at about the halfway point. Instead of what could have been a brilliant, Coen Brothers-ish, dark and misanthropic comedy, it becomes a feel-good piece. When you start to see this happening, you are probably best served to eject the DVD from the tray and write your own ending, because it gets pretty bad. The satire ends and the movie starts preaching a "can't we all just get along?" message. A totally implausible twist strains the relationship between Cady and her teacher (Tina Fey), and then Cady spends the rest of the movie trying to redeem herself. The way in which it ends is downright painful to watch. Oh, Tina Fey, you are one funny-as-hell woman, but boy did you ever screw up the second half of this script.
I could watch movies that accurately portray how horrible high school is all day long. Unfortunately, Mean Girls doesn't do a very good job of this. It starts off well but then it tries to be something that it shouldn't. Unfortunately, this is something else that it has in common with "Heathers". Both movies could have had a better ending, although the brilliance of "Heathers" lasts somewhat longer, and it doesn't hit bottom as hard.
Mean Girls, for the first half of it or so, is great cynical nerd comedy. Granted, the main character, Cady, (played by Lindsay Lohan) isn't an anti-social geek or, for that matter, a victim of bullying. Rather, she is beautiful and socially adept, as well as smart. Her three "friends", Regina, Gretchen, and Karen, are as beautiful, popular, and stupid as they come. Mean Girls is at its best when Cady is exploiting that stupidity as we all observe and snicker, such as when she tricks one girl into gaining a bunch of weight by telling her that high calorie energy bars will help her lose weight.
At some point though, Mean Girls goes horribly wrong. Either Tina Fey did not have enough cynicism in her heart to make this movie the ugly picture that it should have been, or the studio didn't have the courage to let her write that screenplay. Whatever the cause, Mean Girls suddenly becomes a feel-good, "uplifting", clichéd story at about the halfway point. Instead of what could have been a brilliant, Coen Brothers-ish, dark and misanthropic comedy, it becomes a feel-good piece. When you start to see this happening, you are probably best served to eject the DVD from the tray and write your own ending, because it gets pretty bad. The satire ends and the movie starts preaching a "can't we all just get along?" message. A totally implausible twist strains the relationship between Cady and her teacher (Tina Fey), and then Cady spends the rest of the movie trying to redeem herself. The way in which it ends is downright painful to watch. Oh, Tina Fey, you are one funny-as-hell woman, but boy did you ever screw up the second half of this script.
I could watch movies that accurately portray how horrible high school is all day long. Unfortunately, Mean Girls doesn't do a very good job of this. It starts off well but then it tries to be something that it shouldn't. Unfortunately, this is something else that it has in common with "Heathers". Both movies could have had a better ending, although the brilliance of "Heathers" lasts somewhat longer, and it doesn't hit bottom as hard.