“Mean Girls” returns to theatres with some fetch songs and performances in a new version that updates the story of high school cliques and comeuppance for a new generation.
Angourie Rice plays teenager Cady Heron, the role made famous by Lindsay Lohan in the original film. Homeschooled in Kenya by her zoologist mother (Jenna Fischer), she experiences culture shock when thrown into the wilds of the North Shore High School in suburban Illinois. Helping her to navigate the school’s treacherous social structure are Janis ‘Imi’ike (Auliʻi Cravalho) and Damian Hubbard (Jaquel Spivey), who also serve as the story’s narrators.
They tell her about the school’s various cliques, the theatre kids, the Matheletes, the stoners and, Regina George (Reneé Rapp) and sycophants Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika), the popular girls known as the Plastics, because they’re “shiny, fake and hard.”
Regina is the undisputed leader of the group, a sharp-tongued meanie (“Her love language is anger,” says Gretchen.) who sings, “I am a massive deal. I will grind you to sand, beneath my Louboutin heel.” The Plastics embrace the unassuming Cady, inviting her to join their group. “You could be really hot,” says Regina, “if you change, like, everything.”
Just as Cady is getting tight with her new friends, she falls head-over-heels for Aaron (Christopher Briney), the cute boy who sits in front of her in calculus class. “I’m astounded and non-plussed,” she sings. “I am filled with calcu-lust.”
Trouble is, Aaron is Regina’s ex, and, as such, makes Cady a target for the full fury of the school’s apex predator. With the help of Janis and Damian, Cady launches a preemptive strike to unseat Regina as high school queen bee, but soon realizes she has become just like her enemy.
The new musical “Mean Girls,” and it is very much a musical despite what the talky trailers suggest, holds up well in comparison to the classic, original film. Many of the same elements appear. Tina Fey and Tim Meadows both reprise their roles, the Burn Book is a key plot element and the hierarchy of high school life is very clearly and effectively defined. What’s different are the updates in the film’s deft handling of diversity, the open discussions of sexuality and, of course, the showtunes.
The songs are nicely integrated into the story. Co-directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. find a balance between the stage and the screen, blending highly stylized dance moves straight out of Broadway with a cinematic, and occasionally, even social media spin on the cinematography and choreography. That, mixed with an enthusiastic theatre kids vibe, allows the songs to forward the story, act as the inner thoughts of the characters and give Janis and Damian some tuneful narration opportunities.
Standouts include Rapp, who recreates the role from the original Broadway run, and Cravalho, best known for providing the voice of the title character in Disney’s “Moana.” Both deliver powerhouse performances, although Avantika’s spirited rendition of the Halloween tune “Sexy” is probably the film’s most memorable number.
“Mean Girls,” from its beginnings as Rosalind Wiseman’s 2002 book “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” through to Tina Fey’s film and stage adaptation, connected with audiences because of its authentic portrayal of high school life. The new version, adds more than just songs to the source material. It’s a joyful celebration of self-respect, anti-bullying and even the importance of STEM-based education. It has plenty of Easter Eggs for fans of the first film but has plenty to offer to all fans, old and new.
A high school, coma comedy with a fish-out-of-water twist, “Senior Year,” a new Netflix movie starring Rebel Wilson, plays like a mix between “While You Were Sleeping” and “Billy Madison.”
Stephanie Conway (Angourie Rice as teenager, Wilson as an adult) was on track to have a perfect life. A high school star, she was a cheerleader, president of the fashion club and prom queen candidate until a head injury, caused by a tumble off the top of a cheerleading pyramid, put her into coma for twenty years.
Waking up at age 37, it is like no time has passed. As far as she knows, it’s 2002, words like “shiznit” and “bomb diggity” are still hip and she still wants to be prom queen, the pinnacle of high school success. “It’s more than just a crown to me,” she says.
But she is a relic. Social media is a new-fangled thing, political correctness is like science fiction, cheerleaders now do routines about the climate crisis and gun control, and her former classmates are now the parents of high schoolers.
To get on with her new life, its’s time for some adult education… in high school. “I can’t move on to the next chapter in my life,” she says, “if I am still stuck in the old one for twenty years.”
With just a month before graduation, she enrolls, trying to pick up where she left off. But she finds times gave changed. “I had more fun in the coma,” she sighs.
“Senior Year” is a comedy with a scattergun approach.
The coming-of-age story is meant to be a poignant look at Stephanie as she matures and comes to understand that there is more to life than cheerleading and being prom queen. The power of friendships and loyalty are examined—”It doesn’t matter who has the most friends, or likes, or followers,” says Stephanie. “If you just have one or two great friends, they will support you. Then you have got it all. That is worth fighting for.”—butted up against the notion of being true to yourself and the idea that who you are in high school doesn’t define you.
Doesn’t sound that funny, does it?
That’s because it isn’t. At least, not all the way through. “Senior Year” takes a one joke premise and milks it for humor in the first couple of acts. Funny, situational lines are sprinkled throughout the first hour or so. “You survived twenty years without solid food,” says Stephanie’s dad (Chris Parnell), “you can make it through a weekend without your phone,” but they dry up as the movies goes on.
It also goes for laughs from the culture clash between 2002 and 2022. Stephanie has much to learn about political correctness and world events, but to its credit, the film doesn’t treat the teens as woke zombies, spouting catchphrases, but as decent kids who care about their friends and the future.
It sounds like a lot, because it is a lot. Wilson does what she can to keep things moving along, but when the feel-good messaging begins, she is saddled with prosaic, by-the-book truisms that suck away the whatever fun had been established in the film’s first part.
Talented comic actors like Mary Holland and Zoë Chao bring both humor and heart to their roles, but “Senior Year” still feels messy. Too long, it toggles back-and-forth between the sincere and the silly like it is changing gears in a high-speed Formula One race, but, unfortunately, never finds its pace.
Based on David Levithan’s New York Times bestseller “Every Day,” the new teenage romance starring Angourie Rice, asks what would it be like to really get inside the head of the person you love?
Rice plays Rhiannon, a 16-year old high school student dating a popular jock named Justin (Justice Smith). He’s a bit oblivious, the kind of guy who thinks a great date involves hanging around his bedroom, eating McDonalds and playing “Legend of Zelda.” One morning, feeling playful, Rhi suggests they skip class and spend the day together. “Is that something we do?“ he asks, before hightailing out of school and into an afternoon of romantic adventure. It is, Rhiannon says, the greatest day of her life.
Unfortunately, the next day, Justin doesn’t remember any of it. He has a vague memory of the fun, like he’s seeing it through a mist, but soon he’s back up to his old tricks, reverting back to the guy he was before their magical date. What’s going on? It seems Justin was simply “inhabited” for twenty-four hours by A, a wandering spirit who invades random bodies, always of the same age and only for 24 hours. It’s “Quantum Leap with a big helping of teenage ennui.
As Rhiannon slowly comes to grips with what’s going on she meets A’s newest incarnation, a teenage girl. “Where is A?” she asks. “He’s here, he’s not here, here.”
Confused yet? It gets foggier when Rhiannon and A, the amorphous spirit, become romantically involved. “Not everyone’s body aligns with their mind,” A says. “I am asking you to give me a chance.” The love is real, regardless of the meat suit the spirit has jumped into. When A lands in the form of Alexander (Owen Teague), a strapping young man, it seems the perfect blend of metaphysical and physical. Enter the melodramatic teen dilemma: How can you love someone whose life is not their own?
“Every Day” takes the long way around to drive home the point that making a spiritual connection with someone is just as important as clicking physically. After a deadly first thirty minutes that could have been from any generic indie teen drama the story picks up once Rhiannon rebounds from Justin to the spirit world but it never fully engages. Director Michael Sucsy embraces the supernatural afterschool special feel of the material, adding in a few playful touches—A spends some time in Rhiannon, modestly being careful not to look down while she’s in the shower—but he also muddies the already murky waters with a subplot about Rhiannon’s troubled father (Michael Cram) and harried mother (an underused Maria Bello). Their story provides more relationship advice—cultivate the ability to except the change in others—but adds little to the overall story.
“Every Day” feels like it skirts around the interesting stuff—the exploration of what it means to be rootless, cut free of gender and family—in favour of playing up the teen dream “instalove” aspects of the tale.
In 1971 the Don Siegel/Clint Eastwood Civil War drama “The Beguiled” was written off as “heavy handed,” “funny when it shouldn’t be, sentimental to a fault.” The story of a wounded Union soldier convalescing at a Southern girls’ school didn’t find an audience in North America but was a substantial hit in Europe.
Forty-six years later Sofia Coppola’s remake of the overwrought story grabbed the attention of a European audience, wining Coppola the Best Director Award at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. Whether the film, which stars Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell in the roles originated by Geraldine Page and Eastwood, will be a hit on these shores remains to be seen, but one thing is certain, the damning reviews from 1971 are unlikely to be repeated.
Coppola has taken the simple story, toned down some of the lurid aspects of the take to create a film that corrects the knocks against Siegel’s version. The director’s touch is lighter, the laughs are earned and has replaced the sentimentality with subtlety.
It’s 1864 Virginia, three years into the Civil War. Farrell is gravely wounded Union deserter Corporal John McBurney, an Irish charmer, fresh off the boat who took a payday of $300 to fight in a war he didn’t understand. Discovered by Amy (Oona Laurence), a young student at Miss Farnsworth’s Seminary for Young Ladies, he convinces her to help him. She brings him to the white columned school where the headmistress Martha Farnsworth (Kidman) and teacher Edwina Dabney (Kirsten Dunst) make a fateful decision. Sensing he will die soon they patch him up. If he lives they’ll turn him over to the first passing Confederate Army patrol. If not they’ll bury him. It is, as they say, “the Christian thing to do.”
His presence causes quite a stir in the house. Despite initial misgivings the residents of the house fall for McBurney’s charisma. At first its subtle—they start dressing nicer, wearing necklaces and pins that haven’t been taken out of the jewellery box for years—the flirtations increase during his convalescence. A profession of love to Edwina sets in motion a series of events that leads to betrayal and a life or death decision.
Coppola’s telling of the story takes its time establishing the atmosphere inside and outside of the Seminary for Young Ladies. As the war rages on around them, the teachers and five students (Laurence, Elle Fanning, Angourie Rice, Addison Riecke and Emma Howard) are sheltered, self-sufficient. They study French, learn to do needle point and become proper ladies. But life during the Civil war has also exposed them to the harsher realities of life. The younger ones may look like giggling schoolgirls but even they are no strangers to the dangerous vagaries of life during wartime. Coppola establishes their ecosystem and deftly displays the subtle changes that occur with McBurney’s arrival.
Removing the pulpy aspects of the story, Coppola is able to focus on the characters. Kidman is terrific as the pious but protective headmistress. A woman who could have been played as a one note straight and narrow caricature—all Southern charm and clasped hands—is instead given layers as the situation spins out of control.
Dunst is the model of repression while the younger actors are given distinct personalities from the bratty—Fanning and her devious grin—to sweet to infatuated. It’s a showcase for each and every one of them.
Farrell plays McBurney as a kind-hearted rapscallion, a man who can’t help but be charming. With sly wit and an even slier grin he is at once a welcome guest and a menace.
“The Beguiled” is an interesting and entertaining feminist take on a story that in the past was played as a sexualized fantasy.
Way back when Rick Astley was one of the biggest stars in the world Shane Black wrote the classic L.A.P.D. buddy action comedy “Lethal Weapon.” A mix of chemistry and quips it set the template, for better and for worse, for a generation of cop buddy flicks. Black is back, breathing the same air, as co-writer and director of “The Nice Guys,” a hardboiled comedy that places Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling amid the mayhem.
Set in smoggy 1970s era Los Angeles, the story revolves around an odd couple brought together by circumstance. Jackson Healy (Crowe) is the muscle. He’s a brass-knuckled enforcer who makes his money through intimidation and violence. Holland Marsh (Gosling) is a drunken private investigator so desperate he specializes in doing missing persons cases for dementia patients who have forgotten their loved ones are dead, not missing. He’s so inept even his own thirteen-year-old daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice), refers to him as the world’s worst detective.
They are thrown together when March is hired to find Amelia (Margaret Qualley) but she hires Healy to get rid of the creep she thinks is a stalker. An uneasy alliance leads them head on into a wacky web of sleaze, corruption and catalytic converters. There’s a load more plot, but the point here isn’t the story as much as it is the journey it takes its characters on.
By rights “The Nice Guys” should be called “The Nice Guys and a Girl” because the teenage Angourie Rice is a key player. She’s an adolescent sidekick who, unlike Black’s child hanger-on in “Iron Man 3,” doesn’t have a precocious bone in her body. She’s funny, lends some heart to the cynicism on display and nearly steals the movie from the leads.
Nearly, but not completely. Crowe and Gosling bring seedy charm to their roles. They’re part “Freebie and the Bean,” part Abbott and Costello. Each hand in loose performances in a film that is unafraid to spend time listening to its leads bantering back and forth. Gosling excels with physical bits—trying to maintain his modesty in a bathroom stall scene is pure slapstick—while Crowe is more menacing but with solid comic timing.
Black’s way with a visual gag is also used to ample effect. An elevator scene that made me laugh in the trailers is played out with precision, escalating the laughs as the violence increases.
“The Nice Guys” is funny and even thrilling by times, but its greatest trick is to make you fall on side with these two not-always-so-nice-guys. They are neither particularly heroic nor gifted. Instead they are everymen looking for redemption and a fast paycheque. The ending sets things up for a sequel and that’s OK. I’d like to spend more time with these nice guys and girl.
