Mean Girls: Spitefully high-spirited

Mean Girls (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for sexual candor, profanity and bad teen behavior

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.12.24

Confucius said it best, so long ago:

 

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

 

While Cady (Angourie Rice, far right) watches apprehensively, her school's "mean girls"
— from left, Karen (Avantika), Regina (Reneé Rapp) and Gretchen (Bebe Wood) —
reveal the "Burn Book," in which they've written all manner of nasty comments about
fellow students.

Unlikely as it seems, this story has become even more relevant today, than it was when scripter Tina Fey’s clever adaptation of Rosalind Wiseman’s 2002 parental guide — Queen Bees and Wannabes — became a popular 2004 film for Lindsay Lohan.

Although it seemed an unlikely choice to transition into a musical, Mean Girls became a Broadway hit upon opening in 2018; Fey wrote the show’s book, accompanied by Jeff Richmond (music) and Nell Benjamin (lyrics). Touring productions continue to this day, and a film adaptation was inevitable; directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. — with a script once again by Fey — have delivered a thoroughly entertaining two hours of lively razzle-dazzle.

 

(And I have to wonder: Was Fey prescient, two decades back? Did she somehow know that the dark side of social media would make this story fresh again?)

 

All of the original film’s essential plot beats have been retained; many have been re-tooled as energetic production numbers by choreographer Kyle Hanagami.

 

The first is a seemingly spontaneous, home-made garage video by Janis ’Imi’iki (Auli’I Cravalho) and Damian Hubbard (Jaquel Spivey, a force of nature), who function throughout this saga as both characters and a Greek chorus. This opening number, “A Cautionary Tale,” sets the stage for the events to follow. (Pay close attention; their promised details will prove accurate.)

 

The scene then shifts to Kenya, where 16-year-old Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) — despite having thoroughly enjoyed studying animals and stars in the wild, with her mother (Jenna Fischer) — laments her inability to enjoy a “normal” teenage experience. Mom relents, moves them to Evanston, Ill., and Cady eagerly begins her first day at North Shore High School...

 

...and hasn’t the slightest notion how to fit in.

 

A droll montage introduces her various teachers and subjects, most importantly the AP math class taught by Ms. Norbury (Fey, reprising her role from the 2004 film). Cady winds up sitting behind Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney), and is instantly smitten.

 

Lunchtime is the worst, as Cady slowly walks down the center aisle, silently shunned by the cliques at each table. Janis and Damian — outcasts themselves, and proud of it — take pity and rescue her from social oblivion.

 

Then the air is sucked out of the cafeteria, as queen bee-yatch Regina (Reneé Rapp, deliciously haughty) makes her entrance, joining her already seated posse, Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika). They’re “The Plastics,” over-the-top glamour girls with nothing but disdain for the common herd. Regina spots Cady, and — much to everybody’s surprise — invites the new girl to their table.

 

Brad's Status: On life-support

Brad's Status (2017) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang

Inevitability is the death of drama.

Ten minutes into Brad’s Status, it’s blindingly obvious where writer/director Mike White will take his story, and precisely how he’ll get there.

Brad (Ben Stiller, right) and his son, Troy (Austin Abrams), time their visit to Harvard so
they can catch a classical music concert by one of the latter's former high school friends.

And that journey is pretty damn dull.

Mind you, the premise would have been a tough sell, even under more optimal circumstances. A middle-class, mid-life crisis feels unpalatably narcissistic these days, and casting Ben Stiller in such a project is way too on the nose. Much of his career has involved playing self-absorbed mopes, and this story’s Brad Sloan finds Stiller treading his own well-worn ground.

A 101-minute self-pity party isn’t my idea of a good time. Particularly when White’s plot bumps are so predictable.

Brad and his wife Melanie (Jenna Fischer) lead comfortable lives in suburban Sacramento; he runs a nonprofit that matches worthy causes with like-minded angel investors, while she pulls in “real money” with a government job. Their 17-year-old only child Troy (Austin Abrams) is college-bound, prompting a father/son trip across the country, to check out the universities likely to extend offers on the basis of the lad’s strong transcript and solid extracurriculars.

It’s a milestone event for Brad, which triggers all sorts of memories, long-buried desires and Big Questions. Am I successful? Have I done everything in life, that my impassioned, idealistic college-age self intended?

Trouble is, White saddles Brad with some rather insensitive dialogue right off the bat, during the sleepless night before the trip, in the form of a financially themed chat with the patiently exhausted Melanie. Right away, we don’t like Brad. He sounds and behaves like a whiny jerk, and Stiller never does much to change that snap judgment.

Which is a problem, because we’re definitely supposed to identify — even sympathize — with this guy. That’s an uphill struggle, likely impossible for some.

Matters aren’t helped when Brad constantly shares his innermost thoughts, via a constant sulky voice-over. I’ve long found unrelenting off-camera narration a potential red flag in cinematic storytelling; very few writers and directors know how to use it properly. White isn’t one of them; the technique merely slows his already dull fill to a lifeless crawl.

A Little Help: Definitely needs some

A Little Help (2010) • View trailer for A Little Help
Three stars. Rating: R, for profanity, sexual content and drug use
By Derrick Bang


Writer/director Michael J. Weithorn's little film loses its way in the very first scene.

We meet our heroine, dental hygienist Laura Pehlke (Jenna Fischer), in a patient's-eye view as she bends toward the camera with a probe in hand, preparing to scrape the plaque from the teeth of some poor fellow reclining in the chair. The office pet, a gorgeous parrot with a vocabulary of two words — "Rinse, please," repeated over and over — gets on her last ragged nerve. The bird is intended to be soothing for patients; Laura finds it anything but (and who can blame her?).

Remembering the fun they often had while singing along with the radio, Laura
(Jenna Fischer) tries to cheer up her son Dennis (Daniel Yelsky) with the same
tactic. But Dennis, having just entered his teenage years, can't be bothered ...
or so he'd like everybody to believe.

The scene is played for giggles: not knee-slapping gales of laughter, but chuckles at the very least.

We take our cues, going into a film, from the way early scenes are composed: atmosphere, lighting, camera angles, dialogue, the physical bearing of anybody in frame. Weithorn thus prepares us for something light and gentle: perhaps a larkish romantic comedy, perhaps a ruefully perceptive sketch of a thirtysomething woman at loose ends.

Instead, a few scenes later, we're doused with poisonous relationship dynamics that qualify as indefensible cruelty: not just to Laura, but to us viewers. Suddenly, we're in Weithorn's riff on the raw, bitter, family-verité vitriol of Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married. The abrupt change of tone is akin to whiplash.

Laura suffers abuse from every quarter: the marriage from hell, the sister and parents from hell. She apparently endures this mistreatment because somewhere, long ago, she resigned herself to it. We've no idea why, nor will we ever find out. Weithorn fails to supply the roughly 45 minutes of back-story that would justify any of this.

Husband Bob (Chris O'Donnell), habitually coming home late from work, obviously is having an affair. Laura plays doormat as she tries to ignore the screamingly blatant signs; Bob parries direct questions with complaints that he'd feel more like making love to her, if she "hadn't let herself go."

Jenna Fischer? Let herself go? Good Lord, she couldn't be any cuter. Hearing Bob claim otherwise makes him sound like an idiot. More disconnect.

Granted, it has become Hollywood custom for gorgeous young actresses to wind up in stories that find them a) unloved; b) unable to find boyfriends or girlfriends; c) deemed "plain"; and/or d) generally cast aside as ugly ducklings who've not yet blossomed. Depending on the film, we either smile in tolerant amusement or roll our eyes with irritation. This one goes way beyond irritation, since Laura's "appearance" is at the core of Weithorn's script.