Mean girls

Year of release : 2004

Run time : 1h37min

Genre : Comedy / Teen

Cast : Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, Tina Fey, Lizzy Caplan, Lacey Chabert, Amy Poehler, Rajiv Surendra

 

The movie was written by Tina Fey after she read the 2002 self help book, 'Queen bees and wannabes' by Rosalind Wiseman,and based on her own high school experience. The movie has a few adaptations and even a stage play on Broadway! Apparently it has a 2024 film musical adaptation .

Cady is a 16 year old who was home schooled her whole life, her parents being research zoologists who spent the last 12 years in Africa.

Cady has a tough first day, as she doesn't know how to talk to people,and thinks what she did at home can be done at school,like leave the class when she wants to go to the bathroom,or start eating in the middle of the class.

The only ones who would talk to her,right away,are outcasts Janis and Damian,who tell her about how school works. They tell her about the 'plastics' who are teen royalty, the insecure Gretchen and stup!d Karen, led by evil Regina who loves to ruin people's lives.

One day,as she is stopped by Gretchen's ex boyfriend, right in front of the 'plastic's' table, they tell her what the teenager means when asking her things,and ask her to sit with them. Hearing how she doesn't know much about how school works, Regina decides to make her part of their group,and they tell her the rules.

Hearing about this,Janis tells her to spy on Regina and report back, coming with a plan to take her down. Cady likes Regina and doesn't want to hurt her, that is until she finds herself telling Regina about the boy she likes, whom she actually dumbs down for, as she's very good in math,and she has math classes with him.

Regina tells him lies about her, kisses him right in front of her, starting to date him just to spite her, parading him right in front of her all the time.

Jealous and hurt, Cady accepts Janis's offer, and decides to take down her popularity, her looks, and her boyfriend. Cady decides to pretend she still likes her, still being friends with her, while sabotaging everything, from her close circle of friends, to what she eats and puts on her face.

The movie was interesting, Regina was pretty vile, considering what she did to other people regardless of the consequences. Cady stayed in their circle too long, and seeing people like her, she started changing too, forgetting who were her real friends, who was always there for her, and who wasn't,hurting people in the process,turning into ..Regina.

Fun fact : Regina means 'queen' in Romanian.

The actors were good. I read that Lindsay Lohan won many awards for this role. I didn't find her better than the rest.

The soundtrack was good.

The movie received positive reviews from critics, and grossed 130 million dollars at the box office,against a budget of 18 million.

Cinema Score audiences gave the movie an A- on an A+ to F scale.

The movie received many award nominations (most of them being Teen Choice Awards and MTV Movie Awards), and won a few (3 Teen Choice Awards and most of the MTV Movie Awards).

Lindsay Lohan was originally supposed to play Regina George, and Rachel McAdams was to play Cady, but the casting team thought her to be too old. Kristen Stewart was also considered for the role of Cady. Megan Fox, Leighton Meester, Haylie Duff and Kate Mara auditioned to play Karen, while Blake Lively was intended to play Karen, but the producers didn't like her.

Amanda Seyfried auditioned to play Regina, and although they liked her, they cast her as Karen.

Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Tisdale both auditioned to play Gretchen.

James Franco , Penn Badgley and Jared Padalecki auditioned to play Aaron.

The movie is for free on Kanopy, Hoopla; 7 days free on Paramount+, Paramount+ Amazon Channel, Paramount+ Roku Premium Channel; for rent / sale on Amazon, AppleTv, Fandango at Home.

Rating : Worth a watch !