|
D
|
A
|
N
|
G
|
E
|
R
|
S
|
E
|
E
|
K
|
E
|
R
|
S
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
  |
|
© DSFC |
MEAN
GIRLS
|
|||||||||||
| GORRILLAS IN THE MISS | ||||||||||||
| by
pat I don't know how bright Lorne Michaels is. He keeps taking the best and brightest of his Saturday Night Live cast and writers and getting them other gigs. Sure, he gets part of the take that first time out, but after getting Mike Myers WAYNE'S WORLD, did he see a penny of the AUSTIN POWERS series? No, he just saw himself played as the villain. ELF got the Canuck nothing after getting Ferrell (and Kattan) A NIGHT AT THE ROXBURY. Conan O'Brien still lists Lorne as a producer, so there's that. Now he's letting Tina Fey get a taste of the world of movies. Bad move, as she's been the driving force helping keep his show afloat and more for the last decade, after it had almost been officially declared dead. Fey wrote this script (and has a small role, along with SNL buddies Tim Meadows and Ana Gasteyer) based on QUEEN BEES AND WANNABE'S, a non-fiction book that gives parents a guide to understanding the world of teenage girls. Sounds like fluff, right? If you said yes, you are far removed physically and emotionally from high school. I know how bad the cliques were at the all-guys school I went to, and having many good female friends at the neighboring all-girls schools, I became privy to some of the most insidious dealings I still have ever seen. Rumor mills, active campaigns, purposeful betrayals to test the forgiveness levels and maintain the "Queen Bee" status. The unpopular girls of course hated the populars, the foot soldiers somewhere in between acted as oblivious or complacent liaisons, and I think at some point I was socially taken hostage. It's frigging scary. Taking such a book and making it into a PG-13 comedy is, well, brave to say the least. The book does not have a narrative per se, is not really funny, and is not intended for teens. Somehow Fey succeeds. She constructs a narrative around a girl who had been home schooled in Africa and is entering this terrible world of high school as a junior, unaware of what she's in for. She doesn't know anybody, doesn't understand what she needs to do to fit in, so immediately bonds with the "freaks." Still, she's a beautiful girl, so the popular girls seek her out. She winds up "going undercover" with the popular girls to get dirt on them, but starts to really act like a Queen Bee. The whole time, she get the points of the book across by comparing the tribal cliques and territorial behaviors to the animals of Africa. Additional points are made later by Fey's character, but we don't want to delve into spoiler territory, do we? Each character (including the parents) winds up being an archetype to highlight standard patterns of behavior. What's surprisingly effective about this movie, besides the humor (Fey is, and I'll shout it from the rooftops if need be, a brilliant comedy writer), is the fact that it doesn't soften the material. Sure, the language is toned down, and some things (like the existence of drugs in schools) are alluded to though not outright stated or focused on, but the behaviors, the fashions, the cruelty, and the intelligence of teens is not falsified. Some of the girls dress like sluts, behave "inappropriately," call each other things quotable in their cruelty. It paints a much more realistic picture than a SAVED BY THE BELL, without getting the comprised feel of 90210 or the like. I'd say it's tonally closest to THE BREAKFAST CLUB. It treats the subjects not as "adults," by definition, but does treat them as functioning, maturing, emotionally active and reactive people. It rings true. I'm sure a lot of parents would love to assume that this movie is an exaggeration, that their daughter doesn't act like this. They should read the book. They should also take their girl to see this, as it ultimately makes some very important points of encouragement for both them and those who have to deal with them. Like the aforementioned BREAKFAST CLUB, I get thing feeling this one is going to touch a nerve with a lot of people. After most movies, the crowd disperses immediately. After this one, small pockets (cliques?) of every demographic stood around for up to a half an hour discussing not just the funny scenes, but the environment, personal stories, and more. I'm betting $5 (to my favorite charity, not to you, countless readers) that in five years this will be one of those movies everyone assumes everyone has seen, likes, and owns. "Oh my God! You haven't seen MEAN GIRLS? What, were you living in Africa or something?" And the cycle continues. |
|
|||||||||||
