Mean Girls

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Believe it or not, there was a point in time when Lindsay Lohan was considered a sort of "America's Sweetheart" as she was growing up. Her big run spanned between 1998's 'The Parent Trap' to 2005's 'Herbie: Fully Loaded'. She's still going, but she sort of just pops up here and there these days, and she doesn't seem either welcome or unwelcome. Either way, it's probably safe to say that when it comes to Lohan, 'Mean Girls' would most likely be considered her magnum opus.

Here, Lohan stars as 16-year-old Cady Heron alongside some fresh and now famous faces who include Rachel McAdams, ​Amanda Seyfried, Lizzy Caplan, and to a lesser extent, Lacey Chabert, who some probably recognized at the time from 'Party of Five'. But it's interesting to note that this was a film that provided a few break-through roles for some pretty recognizable faces nowadays; namely Caplan, McAdams and Seyfried. It's a neat time capsule to go back on to see these women just starting out, and the roles that arguably spurred them into stardom. Getting back to the plot, however, Cady has recently moved from Africa to Illinois with her zoologist parents, Betsy (Ana Gasteyer) and Chip (Neil Flynn). After being homeschooled for the majority of her life, Cady now must face common, American high school in all it's horrendous glory.

Though her first day doesn't exactly go well, she eventually becomes friends with classmates Janis Ian (Caplan) and her gay best friend, Damian Leigh (Daniel Franzese). The pair show her the ropes, which includes pointing out the different cliques throughout the school. The most popular clique, dubbed the "Plastics", consists of three of the most popular girls in school; Regina George (McAdams) is considered the "queen bee" of the group; Gretchen Wieners (Chabert) is the rich girl whose Dad invented Toaster Strudels; and Karen Smith (Seyfried) is the typical dumb blonde type, but honestly one of the funniest parts of the movie. One day the Plastics have Cady sit with them, and in their own way befriend her mostly due to the fact that she's very pretty and could be among the popular girls.

When Janis and Ian find out that Cady's hanging out with these "mean girls", the three come up with a plot for Cady to take this opportunity to be a mole and spy on them. Eventually Cady learns about the "Burn Book"; a book the Plastics have created sporting photos and nasty comments and rumors about fellow students and even teachers. Soon, Cady finds herself stuck in the middle of a plan to use the Burn Book against Regina, and in the process finds that she may very well be turning into a mean girl herself. That's one of the great things about this movie, however, is that basically everyone in it is mean in their own way, when the title along with the poster pretty much points out the Plastics, so we are very ready to presume that they are the bullyish focus of the film. Following what was said about 'Clueless', once again, don't judge this one by its cover.

The film's great cast extends beyond everyone already mentioned. We can also find some likable funny people among the adults, who mainly include Tina Fey and Ms. Norbury, Tim Meadows as Mr. Duvall, and Amy Poehler as Regina's Mom. Tina Fey also happened to do the writing for this one, based partially on Rosalind Wiseman's self-help book, 'Queen Bees and Wannabes'. Although the main focus here is very obviously on high school girls and how they act towards each other, I find this one very easy to watch in its overall hilarity. Truth be told, this one carries a lot of laugh out loud moments, and tends to carry a valuable lesson about the dangers of popularity. Unlike a lot of teen movies that are about wanting to be popular, this one tells more of a story about accidentally becoming popular, and having the right mindset to handle one's popularity appropriately. This really is a solid film, and it's kind of a shame that it's the last time Tina Fey cranked out a screenplay. She did an awesome job here, and I'd love to see more.

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