Back in November, when the trailer for the new “Mean Girls” film came out, I urged people to give it a chance. However, after seeing the film for myself, I must say it is decidedly not fetch and neither lives up to the original 2004 movie nor the Broadway musical.
My biggest critique of the film is that everyone involved seemed like they each had different ideas of what movie they were making. For instance, Auli’i Cravalho, who played Janis Imi’ike, sang all of her songs with a traditional, bold theater sound. Both her and Jaquel Spivey, who played Damian Hubbard, emphasized the campy aspect of the movie with their performances.
Cravalho’s “I’d Rather Be Me” was a standout musical number, along with Reneé Rapp’s “World Burn,” and Avantika Vandanapu’s “Sexy.” As a whole, Vandanapu, who played Karen Shetty, was hilarious in the role (I was also freaked out when I found out that she is younger than me, having just turned 19 on Jan. 25). However, Rapp’s take on Regina George was outrageously flirty and sexy without the humor she displayed during her Broadway run in 2019. The extreme difference in the performance styles left me confused as to what tone the movie was trying to go for.
The confusion fully extends to the music of the film, which left me wondering who the intended audience of “Mean Girls” actually was. In my eyes, one can sort viewers of this film into two camps: those who were aware of the “Mean Girls” Broadway musical and those who were not. Many fans of the musical, including myself, were angered at the large changes to the orchestrations of the songs. The soundtrack of “Mean Girls” the musical was already extremely pop-oriented as far as Broadway musicals are concerned, which is one reason I thought it would translate to film quite well. However, the background tracks of the songs in this movie sound like a parody of popular pop music, with overwhelming synth sounds and odd beats that not only do not match the lyrics but just frankly sound bad.
On the other hand, those who had no knowledge that this movie was a musical have been flooding Tik Tok with videos of the groans that filled their theaters the moment a song started. Many of these videos depict when Angourie Rice, who played Cady Heron, started singing the song “Stupid with Love.” Frankly, I understand the groaning, as Rice’s vocal performance, no matter what the intention behind her choices was, just came off as disinterested and lacking emotion. Especially when compared with the vocals of Erika Henningsen, who played Heron on Broadway, Rice’s vocals fell flat.
I truly cannot blame viewers for being confused that this film was a musical because the movie itself seemed confused that it was a musical. One glaring instance of this came in the scene where Imi’ike and Hubbard explain the social scene of high school to Heron. In the stage musical, this is done via the song “Where Do You Belong.” While that song was cut from the movie, as someone who knows the musical’s soundtrack by heart, I recognized the dialogue in the film as a word for word reading of the lyrics. If the movie really leaned into its musical nature, this song would have been a no-brainer to include. Without it, the movie loses a huge section of its exposition.
The exclusion of “Where Do You Belong” speaks to a larger issue I had with the movie, which is that it didn’t invoke high school, specifically, how those years make everything seem more dramatic. The 2004 movie mastered the art of simultaneously making fun of and empathizing with high schoolers and their drama, all the way down to the “little bit dramatic” shirt that George famously wears. In the new film, the Plastics feel more like a group of celebrities than a high school cliche — bludgeoning the humor that made the original so lovable.
Continuing on with the theme of this film being tonally confused is the choreography and cinematography. “Mean Girls” was choreographed by Kyle Hanagami, who is widely known on Instagram and YouTube for his trending dance combinations. While I am a fan of his work, I just do not think it was right for this movie. The dancing felt completely separate from the singing and what the songs were actually about. Moreover, it felt more like the choreography was trying to show off rather than stay cohesive to the narrative, and it looked like it belonged more in a commercial than in a movie.
As far as the cinematography goes, in an attempt to modernize the film, there were frequent cuts to a vertical angle that made the movie appear as if it was filmed on a phone. I get the effect this was trying to go for, but it made the film feel quite choppy. Moments of some experimental lighting choices, such as in “Someone Gets Hurt,” ended up looking more like a Chris Briney thirst trap than a dramatic musical number.
Overall, the 2024 “Mean Girls” is decently entertaining for those, like me, who are genuinely huge fans of the original movie. These fans will enjoy seeing the likes of Tina Fey and Tim Meadows come back to reprise their roles as well as cameos from “Mean Girls” alumni. However, on its own, I simply do not think this movie holds up. If I was the original “Mean Girls,” I wouldn’t hesitate to say “you can’t sit with us” to this new adaptation.
