“Mean Girls”: A Musical Remake That is Not Really Fetch

The musical adaptation of the now-classic 2000s comedy, brought from the Broadway stages to our screens.

Summary

Cady Haron, moves back to the US with her mother after living in Africa for years. Having spent her whole life homeschooled, attending high school proves to be more challenging than she initially thought.

The unexpected opportunity to befriend Regina George, the popular mean girl, will introduce Cady to a world of lies, jealousy and betrayal that are more than capable of corrupting her.

The Musical Aspect

I’ve never had the chance to see the stage musical on which this film is based, but I’m pretty familiar with the songs, and some of them are really fun. I understand it must be difficult to go from one format to another, but here they didn’t do a great job.

Most of the performances that on stage have more elaborated choreographies, are plain and uneventful at best, and sound generic. Almost Disney Channel. And I’m being unfair, because High School Musical did a lot better in its time.

The few original songs are just boring and forgettable. But what left me perplexed was the fact that the two best songs in the entire musical (“Where Do You Belong?” and “Stop!”) were not featured in the film at all.

What About Comedy?

I know we’re trying to rely more on the musical aspect of the story, but the original Mean Girls was a comedy. In fact, it was one of those comedies that age like wine. Taking that into consideration, I expected to laugh. At least a little.

The original film was unafraid of making jokes about everything. Something that, back in the day, when we were not so absurdly sensitive, wasn’t that big of a deal. Everyone had the capacity to understand that those were jokes.

The new Mean Girls avoid all the topics that could be considered “politically incorrect”. For example, they didn’t dare make the new Karen ask Cady “Why are you white?”, even though it was arguably one of the character’s funniest lines.

The story of Regina spreading rumors about Janis being a lesbian is also handled in a different light. God forbid someone thinks they are homophobic.

And it’s that terror they have of going too far that I find more tiresome. If you really want to remake, adapt, reinvent, or whatever you want to do with an old project, then commit to it. Otherwise, write something new. Creating these sanitized versions of things that worked in the past is getting old.

Not The Best Casting

You can try, but it’s impossible not to compare the new cast to the original. Even considering that, being a musical, the criteria behind the casting decisions must have been different, no one in their right mind can help but see the evident: The casting choices were not great.

Angourie Rice, gives a very flat performance as Cady. Maybe it is not completely her fault, for I believe that the musical makes Cady kind of boring, but still. I want to highlight the choice of casting Jenna Fischer as her mom, though. Both actresses look a lot alike; you can believe they are mother and daughter.

Damian (Jaquel Spivey), who was a pretty important character and a great comic relief in the original, and who had all the best songs in the stage musical, is just there. He doesn’t matter. The only person whose performance I truly enjoyed was Auli’i Cravalho. She has the best screen presence of the entire cast, and the song “I’d Rather Be Me,” which she performs, is the best musical number of the film.

The Counterfeit Plastics

The Plastics, who should have been a reinvention of the iconic villains, look like a parody of the originals. The actresses just don’t have enough charisma. Rene Rapp, for whom I heard a lot of praise before watching the movie, is the one who does a better job. I believe she played Regina on Broadway at some point, and even though she is incapable of equaling Rachel McAdams’ performance, her vocal talents are undeniable.

Tina Fey and Tim Meadows reprise their roles as Ms. Norbury and Mr. Duvall, respectively. There are a few cameos, such as Lindsay Lohan as a moderator on the Mathletes tournament, and Ashley Park, who originated the role of Gretchen on Broadway, as the school’s French teacher.

Stop Trying to Make Fetch Happen

The enormous efforts to make the cast as “diverse” as possible are very much in your face all the time. I guess the story takes place in Los Angeles; I don’t see any other way to make sense of it.

Hollywood keeps trying to make us believe that race-swapping everyone is a good deed, and our response should be a standing ovation. I’m really bored.

Fashion And Personality

The Plastics’ outfits and rules played a huge role in the original movie. Part of what made the group, and Regina in particular, look so out of reach for the average student was their fashion sense.

Maybe high schoolers didn’t dress like them in the early 2000s, but that was the point: The Plastics were something aspirational, the ideal of status, femininity, power, and perfection. That’s why, years later, those outfits displayed in the 2003 movie are still referenced and a part of pop culture in some way.

The new movie, on the other hand, wastes that possibility. The plastics look like everyone else. They make the most of the latest trends, I suppose, but it is precisely that what prevents them from being special. The original Plastics were the ones creating the trends, not the ones following them. And some of the outfits are just…ugly. Regina George wouldn’t be caught dead wearing that.

And of course, fashion is a tool to show the changes in Cady’s character as the story moves forward. In the original, her transformation from a sweet kid to a mean girl is evident not only in her behavior, but also in the way she dresses. In the new one, she doesn’t really change at all, and it makes the film’s message about being yourself lose strength.

Box Office Results

Mean Girls was originally created for the streaming service Paramount+, but positive test screenings allowed its release in theaters. With a relatively small production budget of only $36.000.000, it managed to obtain over $100.000.000 worldwide. A relative success. A success that doesn’t make me change my mind.

Overall, it was a waste of time. It lacks originality, it lacks comedy, and it’s a poor adaptation of both the original movie and the stage musical.

Whether you’re a fan of the 2003 version, or a musical theater enthusiast, you’re not missing much by skipping Mean Girls.