After 2023 brought a series of increasingly bold, true-blue cinematic musicals, with everything from “Barbie” to “Wonka” to “The Color Purple” getting in on the action, 2024 opens with a whimper in the form of the newly revamped musical “Mean Girls.”
While the Mark Waters-directed, Tina Fey-penned 2004 film has become something of a generation-defining staple of the genre, it was, in fact, the 2017 musical stage play (as written by Fey, Jeff Richmond, and Nell Benjamin) that looked to play the greatest creative influence on this new film. What could’ve been a triumphant cinematic encapsulation of the highly-acclaimed Broadway show (which has an absolutely killer songbook) instead winds up feeling partially ashamed of being a musical in the first place. From the distinctly non-musical marketing to the ways in which it both visually and narratively feels the need to work to ‘justify’ its musical setpieces, the sad reality is that 2024’s “Mean Girls” winds up disparagingly torn between these two prior iterations, ultimately proving unable to capture the spirit of either of them.
TOP FIVE THINGS ABOUT “MEAN GIRLS“
5. Weak Spot: Speeding Through the Original
The original “Mean Girls” has become an integral part of pop culture. From ‘fetch’ to ‘on Wednesdays, we wear pink’ to ‘October 3rd’ to Regina George herself, the film has become something of an unanticipated monolith in terms of its enduring legacy. So it’s understandable that the new film would want to recreate and/or try to recapture some of those iconic moments. However, the way the 2024 film goes about this is by essentially just beat-for-beat restaging the exact same lines and scenes at a faster pace, with worse timing.
The result doesn’t feel celebratory of the original film but rather like a store-brand, watered-down version of it. For huge swaths of the runtime, the game new cast is stuck just playing the hits, like an uninspired cover band. Between this and trying to carve out time for the musical numbers of the Broadway show, it leaves precious little time for this version of “Mean Girls” to find anything special about itself or to do justice to the prior versions it is aping.
4. A Strong Cast
All of this is especially unfortunate, given what a strong cast of players has been assembled here. From A-list supporting roles to newfound supernovas of bona fide talent, everyone here is turning in the best work they can given the circumstances.
A special shout out is in order to both Renée Rapp and Auli?i Cravalho, who take on some of the most imposing and iconic roles of the film (Regina and Janis, respectively) and even amidst the uncertainty, manage to truly make the parts their own and shine through.
3. Weak Spot: What the Fuck Did They Do to the Songs?
The songbook of the 2017 Broadway musical is profoundly awesome. With music and lyrics by Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin, it uses multi-layered compositions that are drenched in thematic intent and anchored in character motivations to push the story forward in palpable ways at every turn. In that version, Cady’s sonic world is full of Paul Simon “Graceland”-esque compositions, Janis’s songs are all guitar-driven, Damian’s tracks are more traditionally showtune-y, Regina gets lavish and extravagant “Bond”-esque themes, etc. Every choice in the actual musical composition of the work emphasizes story, character, theme, or all three simultaneously. It’s awesome.
So when the 2024 movie decides to essentially scrap all of that in favor of turning these tracks, musically, into largely indiscernible, homogenous light pop songs, it is a mind-numbing decision. It actively makes the film worse in so many ways, and considering that the entire creative team here carried over from the 2017 play, it is utterly baffling.
Maybe they thought this would play better with modern teens. But if anything, this and the garish hyper-modern visual aesthetic choices (phone interfaces, TikTok videos, memes, etc.) are destined to age like a glass of milk left out in the sun.
2. Weak Spot: Losing the Thread
Perhaps worst of all, in the midst of all of this, the film completely loses its grip on its primary character and story: Cady’s emotional arc. By cutting so many of the songs from the Broadway show (‘Roar,’ Fearless,’ etc.), rearranging and reassigning the ones left to other characters at other points in the story (‘Apex Predator’), and excluding the character’s internal narration (as she had in the 2004 film), this version of Cady never gets the chance to become a full character.
Her motivations are paper-thin, she is almost entirely passive in her own story, and her ‘arc’ is so woefully undeserviced that none of the story’s biggest beats ever even get a chance to land with anything other than a thud. Aging, given that Cady’s arc is such a remarkable strength of both the 2004 film and the 2017 play, this is a catastrophic blow to the integrity of the story and film as a whole.
1. Auli?i Cravalho’s Big Musical Number: ‘I’d Rather Be Me’
Far and away the best part of the film is Auli?i Cravalho’s Big Musical setpiece at the tail-end of the second act, “I’d Rather Be Me.” Of every song in the movie, this is the one that hews truest to the tone, intent, and actual sound of its Broadway counterpart, and it is all the better for it. Bolstered by Auli?i Cravalho’s killer vocals (she voiced Moana in “Moana” for crying out loud, she’s got the chops), this number practically tears straight through the fabric of the story and film to soar above everything else. Delivered with blistering intensity vocally, captured in the most exciting cinematic language of the entire work, and serving as a proper culmination of narrative, thematic, and character threads, ‘I’d Rather Be Me’ absolutely owns.
It is also an unbelievably fitting encapsulation of this film, as the musical number ends with one of the biggest story beats of Cady’s entire arc playing out in the background, nearly out of focus. It’s played as a gag, but it only further highlights the dissonance with which the film is struggling.
RGM RATING
(D)
“Mean Girls” 2024 is not a terrible film by any stretch. Directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. do an admirable job and have a bright future ahead of them, Fey’s script is at its best when it’s leaning into the more anarchic and fourth-wall breaking irreverence, and the entire cast does solid work. But the sheer amount of wasted potential here is staggering. Between its prior iterations, influences, it’s inherited killer songbook, and the level of talent of the folks involved here, this should have and could have been absolutely phenomenal.
And it just isn’t.
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