Tina Fey’s Teen Comedy Returns as a Movie Based on a Musical Based on a Movie!
DIRECTORS: SAMANTHA JAYNE, ARTURO PEREZ JR./2024
The Plastics are back, this time with a song in their hearts.
Well, what’s left of their hearts. Our new Cady (Angourie Rice), Regina (Reneé Rapp), Gretchen (Bebe Wood), and Karen (Avantika) are every bit as vapid and vicious as Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, and Amanda Seyfried were 20 years ago. And since the Internet was still only a gleam in Mark Zuckerberg’s eyes when Tina Fey first wrote Mean Girls, the Plastics aren’t just updating their story with music but with social media. I graduated from high school less than 15 years ago, but the teenage world of 2024 wears a completely different kind of pink on Wednesdays than the OG Plastics or I did.
For those of you not familiar with Mean Girls—seriously though, but how?—this musical remake follows the same plot as the 2004 hit comedy and the 2017 Tony-nominated Broadway production. After growing up in Africa, Cady emigrates to the United States. Her single mom (Jenna Fischer) can only do so much to prepare her for a U.S. high school, so her naïveté is no match for the seductive powers of Regina “Massive Deal” George. The more time she spends with the most popular girls in school, the more she gives her first friends, Damian (Jaquel Spivey) and Janis (Auli’i Cravalho), the shaft. The more she falls for Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney), the less she pays attention in Ms. Norbury’s (Fey) math class. Her soul is becoming more and more plastic, but plastic can only carry the weight of so many lies.
The rising trend of converting non-musical movies into musicals for the stage is hit-or-miss. Mrs. Doubtfire is fun because of the Robin Williams legacy on the lead, and though Beetlejuice wasn’t for me, it has found fans with its snark. On the other end of the spectrum are shows like Pretty Woman, which is weighed down with meh songs. Mean Girls, however, isn’t just one of the best recent movie-to-musical productions—it’s one of the best new musicals I’ve seen as a regular theatergoer. This silver screen adaptation is best when it leans into those musical roots, such as when “Apex Predator” picks up animal-inspired choreography or with the explosion of color in Cady’s imagination in “Revenge Party.” Since the script picks up many sequences verbatim from two decades ago, it matters that it can find a fresh take by putting an annatto spotlight on Regina in “World Burn.” Winks abound to both the original film and to the show, so much so you almost can’t keep up if you haven’t watched the former at least 5 times or listened to the latter’s soundtrack at least 10. Though some moments (see: October 3rd) feel more like IP lore that needs to be acknowledged, the audience being able to correctly predict the dialogue isn’t all bad. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and you can’t improve upon “You go, Glen Coco!”
Like A Star Is Born and Little Women, Mean Girls doesn’t suffer from a remake only two decades out because although when our culture changes cosmetically, the truths at the stories’ centers (about fame or coming of age) never do. However, some of the cosmetic changes in 2024 don’t lend to dynamic filmmaking. Front-facing cameras are a staple of modern life, but Mean Girls and last fall’s comedy Dumb Money confirm just how anti-cinematic those lenses are. Opening with a TikTok-ready filming of “A Cautionary Tale” starts our story feeling small, and though the Halloween-set “Sexy” is one of the funniest songs on stage, literally boxing it into less than one-third of a giant screen robs it of is power. Even when the full widescreen is used, many of the numbers are delivered with a minimum of flash, and Rice and Rapp’s breathy sopranos are sometimes lost in the mix. (To be fair, this might have been an issue for our particular screening. Our projectionist changed the aspect ratio multiple times during the film, suggesting not everything was set up properly.)
A few years ago I waxed about how the most innovative modern-day musicals are actually action movies set to rock n’ roll soundtracks, and The A.V. Club and The Hollywood Reporter have also lamented about the mediocrity of both the genre’s production values and marketing in the 21st century. Is there a focus group summary that has circulated through Hollywood or a powerful executive who has made it impossible get an appropriate budget for a musical? Here’s hoping the box office success of Barbie has begun to right the ship back in the direction of George Cukor, Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, Vincente Minnelli, and Robert Wise!
Even though some of the songs are lackluster and even though some characters remain underdeveloped to make room for the songs (apologies to Gretchen Wieners and to Jon Hamm, who may be on screen less than one minute), the Mean Girls musical is nowhere near disastrous. Fey is just as sharp when writing for the more openly aggressive Gen Z as when she wrote for passive aggressive Millennials, and Spivey consistently earned big laughs in our screening. Even when it’s predictable, it’s enjoyable, and viewers new to the story may find it even more delightful without the baggage of comparison that those of who grew up watching it at sleepovers carry.