The first “Mean Girls,” that compulsively watchable high-school based social satire by Tina Fey, came out in 2004. The Broadway musical opened in 2018. Now it’s 2024, and we have a screen adaptation of the theater adaptation. How long will this reconfiguring go on? Is there a limit?
Or … does the limit not exist?
Forgive us that utterly blatant setup for one of the original’s most famous lines. It’s just that some of them are so darned memorable. Like, “You can’t sit here!” — screeched. Or when Regina, the haughtiest queen bee ever to carry a cafeteria tray, scathingly tells her minion Gretchen, who’s trying out her new word “fetch,” to “Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen. It’s NOT going to happen!!”
On the other hand, fat-shaming? That’s still there, as when the camera zooms in rudely on the rear end of a character who’s gained a few pounds.
As for the casting, some of it works wonderfully, particularly the duo who introduce the film, which is again written by Fey, with music by Jeff Richmond (her husband), and lyrics by Nell Benjamin. Damian, the beloved character described affectionately by Janis as “almost too gay to function” (but that’s only OK when she says it), and Janis, his best friend, a talented artist whose fallout with Regina left her in the dirt socially, function almost as quasi-narrators. Jaquel Spivey, of Broadway’s “A Strange Loop,” is hilarious and also moving as Damian — you wait for each new line, and he wastes none of them. And Auli’i Cravalho as Janis has a gorgeous voice and charismatic screen presence. (And a huge song, though from the trailer, you wouldn’t know anyone has songs at all.)
