'Mean Girls' is no masterpiece, but it's a fun diversion after a decade

Mean Girls

Why do high school movies always insist on reducing people to types? Is it because that's pretty much what we actually do to each other in high school? And since the people making these movies are always pretty far removed from high school -- even if they write the material -- they are usually working off of their own memories, which are likely less nuanced.

Probably part of the reason so much of us hated high school, or like me were somewhat indifferent to it, is because whether you wanted to be or not, you were labeled, grouped, and simplified into being a "thing" and if you dared to not be conformist, it was worse.

At its best moments, Mean Girls, which shockingly is now a decade old, sort of gets that. For a certain generation of filmgoers this is their Citizen Kane, and while I like the movie just fine, it's incredibly conventional and sort of simplistic in a way I wouldn't expect from a writer as talented and creative as Tina Fey.

For all the brouhaha over Lindsay Lohan, and how this film is routinely held up as a tribute to her talent -- she's really just OK in it. She's a decent straight woman to a cast of far more interesting characters. I also wish she wasn't saddled with an under-cooked romantic subplot with a thoroughly boring and unconvincing male character. The dynamic between the girls is what makes this movie funny and interesting to me.

Amy Poehler as "The Cool Mom"

I'm not even all that amused by Lizzy Caplan and Daniel Franzese as Lohan's vaguely goth and flamboyantly gay friends respectively. Their characters feel dated and the constant self-referential nature of their quips takes me out of the movie. Why does Hollywood insist on making characters who are supposed to be kids talk like adults?

Still, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert and even Amanda Seyfried are pitch perfect as "The Plastics". The movie nails how the so-called popular girls are always the most neurotic. I also think two of the funniest things in the movie are supporting turns from SNL vets Tim Meadows as the social awkward principal and Amy Poehler as a Kris Jenner-esque type wannabe "cool mom."

Ironically, this character doesn't seem too far removed for Lohan's real-life mom, and I think is an archetype worth a film of its own.

For my money, everything Mean Girls did ten years ago Heathers did far better back in 1988. That movie works better for me because it eschewed any attempt to appear realistic and instead chose to be savage satire aimed at the heart of "popular" society. Its off-kilter sensibility, even danger, is missed in Mean Girls, with generally light-hearted tone and, for the most part, feel-good ending.

Nevertheless, this movie really resonated and still does to this day. Some of its one-liners and catchphrases have really worked themselves into the millennial speech pattern (stop trying to make 'fetch' happen!) and it clearly rings true for some people, just not me. I enjoy it as a diverting time capsule of mid-2000s white people problems.