Girl fight!
I had dreaded this film for some time. Lohan’s odd pauses in her acting always unnerved me. Sure it was cute in the remake of Parent Trap, but it gets real old when you see it in Freaky Friday and… well… name a film. So, when I heard that Mean Girls was coming to Blu-ray, I bit my tongue, stuffed my snobby side in the back of my mind and said, “sure”. Before I get into my humble opinion, let me give you a small recap of the story.
Cady Heron is the new girl at school. She’s been homed schooled up to this point in her life and she has lived in Africa with her parents (who are researchers). She has never experienced public school at all. So, when she gets thrown into the wild, she soon finds out that there are people who ‘have’ and those who ‘have not’. Deciding that all the good people of the world are on the ‘have not’ side, she soon sneaks her way into the ‘have’ with plans to sabotage the group click. However, she finds herself sucked into their mold and starts to become what she had planned to destroy. In the end, she comes back out of the experience wiser, by some degree, but helps to unify a school that clearly had an ugly division.
While Lohan does bring that ‘huff’ with her to this movie, she plays the role of the outsider perfectly. She truly plays off her written personality of a lost loner, who hasn’t a clue why or how to survive a high school. Her supporting cast keeps her in an even balanced check, as Rachel McAdams plays an super-snobby rich girl, who carefully manipulates and destroys anyone who gets in her way. She’s the perfect (and I do mean this with the upmost respect) bitch. She plays the ‘bitch’ role without a hitch. As for the Lohan supporters, she’s got Janis Ian (who plays the perfect goth girl) and her friend Daniel Franzese (who just shines as the off-beat goofball of the group). And while the story really does surround Lohan and company, I have to give some mad props to Tim Meadows, who plays a dead-pan principal Duvall, and the zany/hot Tina Fey as the nerdy, but natural example of goodness, Ms Norbury. The last two certainly help to keep the entire group of kids in check during the film.
While the story was adapted from Rosalind Wiseman book, Tina Fey put together an intelligent screenplay. She probably took most of the book and added a bit of experience from her own high school time. She wrote a good comedy, a fantastic drama and perfect characters to boot. There’s a really good reason why she is the head writer on SNL and this movie shows it. Of course, writing is only part of the gig, I have to give some shout out to Mark Waters who really got an even balance of acting for Mean Girls. I’m sure that the personalities on set were tough to juggle, some people were still teens, but what came out of the experience was a finely tuned film that told a harsh reality to high school life. Trust me, when I graduated from HS in 1994, this was the case. I couldn’t imagine this type of group separation to change anytime soon in a high school environment.
So, outside of Lohan’s ‘huffing’ acting, I still think you get a more than solid product at the end of the day. If you haven’t experienced Mean Girls, you should before you have kids or before your kids make it to high school. It’s eye-opening as it is funny.
Feeling a bit Blu about Mean Girls
Like so many other Blu-ray films, you get top-notch quality. The picture of high school life never looked so vivid and scary/real. You’ll find a good combination of blacks/whites in the color scheme of the movie which shine like the sun through a window on Blu-ray. You’ll be visually impressed. What is equally impressive, if not moreso, is the audio/music in the film. You knew that a film like this, which is geared towards a younger audience is going to bring some fantastic audio and music to the table. It sounds unreal in a 7.1 environment.
As for features, here’s what you’re looking at:
– Commentary by director, writer and producer
– Word Vomit (Blooper Reel)
– So Fetch (Deleted Scenes)
Not a lot here, but still decent features. The movie brings more to the table though, in the long run.
