Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Sarah Berger ’27
Staff Writer
Depending on your age, “Mean Girls” might mean any number of things to you. The franchise has undergone numerous transformations over the years. The 2004 movie was adapted from a 2002 nonfiction book called “Queen Bees and Wannabes” by Rosalind Wiseman. The movie was followed by a 2011 sequel, then adapted into a 2017 Broadway musical with a book by Tina Fey. Unfortunately, the stellar legacy of the narrative has been tarnished by the 2024 remake, which haphazardly combines both movie and musical without adding anything of its own.
The cast includes rising stars Avantika (Karen), Christopher Briney (Aaron), Bebe Wood (Gretchen), Angourie Rice (Cady) and Jaquel Spviey (Damien), as well as Renee Rapp (Regina and Auli’i Cravalho (Janis). Tina Fey (Mrs. Norbury) and Tim Meadows (Principal Duvall) reprise their original roles. But 2024’s “Mean Girls” shows that an all-star cast does not ensure a good movie.
For one thing, Rice is a strange choice for the lead. Her singing is emotionally flat, and she seems to be more focused on remembering her lines than bringing them to life. Her anger comes off as comical, and it’s certainly not helped by camera angles better suited for a TikTok than a movie.
Avantika’s Karen comes off as a parody. For her character to work, she requires more than a slackened jaw and wide eyes. She needs insecurity, vengeance and jealousy. She must be silly without being one-dimensional, which the 2024 version fails to achieve. Fortunately for Karen’s character, her standout song “Sexy” is a standout. It’s funny and energetic, and Avantika brings more vocal energy in a few moments than the rest of the cast does for the entire movie.
Rapp and Cravalho are standout performers, but even their performances falter in the face of lackluster choreography, trite lines and a lack of energy from the rest of the cast. Songs like Rapp’s “World Burn” and Cravalho’s “I’d Rather Be Me” are demoted from highlights in the musical to tired wannabe pop anthems. The musical numbers are relaxed compared to the Broadway version, and some are cut completely. Cady’s original introduction, “It Roars,” is transformed into the soulless “What Ifs,” the kind of song you might hear playing in a TJ Maxx. It highlights a central problem of the movie: iIt’s a musical for people who don’t like musicals.
The writing also leaves much to be desired. If you hadn’t seen the original or weren’t at least vaguely familiar with the plot, the movie may make little sense. Regina is mean, but not enough to justify Cady’s behavior toward her. Some scenes are ripped word-for-word from the original movie, which only highlights the subpar acting in the 2024 version.
Plotlines from the movie are removed to appeal to the modern sensibilities of the audience, but it’s sloppily done. Some jokes about body image are cut, but Cady’s “revenge,” feeding an unknowing Regina protein bars that cause her to gain weight, remains. This seems incredibly out of place in a movie set in the present day, where weight gain is no longer considered with the abject horror it once was. It’s also perhaps the cruelest thing done in the movie, which further highlights the toothlessness of the new iteration of the clique that Regina leads, the Plastics.
The movie holds on to outdated ideas about high school while simultaneously failing to integrate newer concepts. The students of North Shore High are dressed entirely in fast fashion-esque neons, which makes little sense considering that the styles of the early 2000s are having a renaissance. There are clips inserted of students gossiping on a TikTok-like app, but it ignores the realities of how teens use TikTok. People don’t typically post 2-second clips gossiping about their classmates, nor do they live-react to videos from a random high school. The attempts to integrate modern culture and media into the movie only show that a remake was, ultimately, unnecessary. Although some parts of the original film may no longer be as applicable as they once were, it still stands as a genuinely funny, thoughtful and incisive critique of social dynamics. The new movie is high school as depicted by someone who’s seemingly never been. It’s too bright, too loud, a bit boring and all-around nonsensical.