Mean Girls
| Mean Girls | |
|---|---|
 Official Logo | |
| Directed by | Mark Waters |
| Screenplay by | Tina Fey |
| Based on | Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman |
| Produced by | Lorne Michaels |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Daryn Okada |
| Edited by | Wendy Greene Bricmont |
| Music by | Rolfe Kent |
Production company | Broadway Video |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 97 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $17–18 million |
| Box office | $130.1 million |
Mean Girls is a 2004 American teen comedy movie directed by Mark Waters, produced by Lorne Michaels, written by Tina Fey and starring Lindsay Lohan. The supporting cast includes Rachel McAdams, Fey, Tim Meadows, Amy Poehler, Ana Gasteyer, Lacey Chabert, Lizzy Caplan, Daniel Franzese, Neil Flynn, Jonathan Bennett, and Amanda Seyfried in her feature film debut. The film follows Cady Heron, a naïve teenager who transfers to an American high school after years of homeschooling in Africa, where she quickly befriends outcasts Janis Ian and Damian Leigh, with the former in particular forming a plan to exact revenge on Regina George, the queen bee of an envied clique known as the "Plastics".
Mean Girls was produced by Lorne Michaels' production company Broadway Video. Fey conceived the idea for the film after reading the 2002 self-help book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. The book describes female high school social cliques, school bullying and the resulting damaging effect on teenagers. Fey also drew from her own experience at Upper Darby High School in Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania, as an inspiration for some of the film's concepts. Principal photography began in September 2003 and ended in November. Although the film is set in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, shooting took place primarily in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Mean Girls premiered at Pacific's Cinerama Dome in Hollywood on April 19, 2004, and was theatrically released in the United States on April 30 by Paramount Pictures. It received widespread critical acclaim for Waters' direction, Fey's screenplay and its humor, and the cast performances (particularly Lohan's). The film was a massive box office success, grossing over US$130 million worldwide against an estimated budget of $17 to $18 million. Lohan won two MTV Movie Awards and three Teen Choice Awards, among numerous other accolades. In 2021, Richard Brody of The New Yorker ranked Lohan's performance as the 11th-best movie performance of the 21st century.
A sequel, Mean Girls 2, premiered on ABC Family in January 2011. The film also spawned various adaptations, including a stage musical, which premiered on Broadway in March 2018, with a film adaptation of the musical released in January 2024.
Plot
Mean Girls is about a teenage girl, Cady Heron, who used to be home schooled in Africa but moves to the United States and has to go to a normal high school in Evanston, Illinois. On her first day at school, she hates it. She thinks it is a bit weird because she cannot go to the toilet when she wants, cannot write in green ink and has to stay in the same seat every time she goes into a lesson.
On the second day it becomes more successful as she makes new friends, Janis and Damian. When they skip a lesson, Janis and Damian give her a map of the school eating area. It is arranged into different sorts of people and their personalities. At lunch time Cady is on her way to sit with her new friends but is interrupted, then Regina, Gretchen and Karen ("The Plastics") ask her to sit with them and so she sits with them.
Soon, Cady joins the Plastics, and Janis devises a plan to shatter them. Cady convinces Regina to eat these bars that will make her gain weight instead of lose weight. However, Cady becomes too much like the Plastics, and throws a party at her parents' house without their permission. She tries to hook up with Regina's boyfriend, but he rejects her because she's "just like a clone of Regina now". Janis tells Cady that she's just like one of the Plastics now.
Janis reveals to the entire school about her and Cady's plan to ruin Regina's reputation. Regina is upset and leaves the school but is hit by a bus. Low grades in calculus class force Cady to rethink her plans. She joins the math team, and works on getting her grades up. She manages to help the math team win a championship.
Cast
- Lindsay Lohan as Cady Heron
- Rachel McAdams as Regina George
- Lizzy Caplan as Janis Ian
- Daniel Franzese as Damian
- Lacey Chabert as Gretchen Wieners
- Amanda Seyfried as Karen Smith
- Tina Fey as Ms. Sharon Norbury
- Tim Meadows as Mr. Ron Duvall
- Amy Poehler as Mrs. George
- Ana Gasteyer as Mrs. Heron
- Neil Flynn as Mr. Heron
- Jonathan Bennett as Aaron Samuels
Sequel
Mean Girls 2 was released in 2011 on DVD. None of the actors from Mean Girls were in it apart from Tim Meadows.
References
- ↑ "Mean Girls (12A)". British Board of Film Classification. April 28, 2007. Archived from the original on March 30, 2015. Retrieved April 22, 2014.
- 1 2 "Mean Girls (2004)". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on April 19, 2004. Retrieved January 23, 2010.
- ↑ "Tina Fey visits Upper Darby High for 'Mean Girls' promo". PhillyVoice. May 24, 2018. Archived from the original on May 24, 2018. Retrieved November 10, 2018.
- ↑ Brody, Richard (March 6, 2021). "The Best Movie Performances of the Century So Far". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 8, 2021.
{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
Other websites
