Mean Girls Do Cry

In "Mean Girls" a softer version of "Heathers" written by SNL's head-writer Tina Fey, a group of ultra-popular, ultra-pretty and ultra-bitchy girls terrorize the entire high school and each other.

None of this is news and no one should be surprised that these movies keep being made, mostly because girls keep being nasty to each other. Based on the book "Queen Bees and Wanna-Be's", Fey turned this non-fiction study into an occasionally hilarious look at "girl world".

Cady Heron, played by Lindsay Lohan, has been homeschooled till the age of 16 when her parents, no longer researching in Africa, settle down and send her to high school. She is sufficiently naive and when approached by the Plastics, the group of girls everyone else wants to be, she agrees to hang out with them only because her new friend Janice convinces her to spy on them.

Of course, Cady ends up becoming just like the Plastics and both hilarity and disaster ensue. The ending of a utopian society where everyone realizes they are equals is a result of an emotional feeding frenzy provoked by a book of nasty comments and rumors about everyone in the school. This idyllic school environment is essentially bullshit and is what causes the movie to falter a bit. The sharp and biting sarcasm that pervades the rest of the script seems to have been sucked out of the last ten minutes or so. "Heathers" which ended with the bombing of a high school gymnasium and Winona Ryder walking into the sunset, not with the handsome hero, but her wheel-chair bound, overweight buddy, provides a much more snarky view on high school politics.

Still, "Mean Girls" is funny with a number of quotable lines and a decent performance by Lohan who, by not losing the audience as Cady becomes the Queen Bee bitch, lets us cheer for her attitude adjustment and eventual redemption. And, as teen chick flicks go, this is a much better offering than "The Prince and Me".