Mean Girls

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Mean Girls
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Mark Waters
Produced by	Lorne Michaels
Written by	Rosalind Wiseman (book Queen Bees and Wannabes) Tina Fey
Starring	Lindsay Lohan Rachel McAdams Tina Fey Tim Meadows Amy Poehler Ana Gasteyer Lacey Chabert Amanda Seyfried Lizzy Caplan Daniel Franzese Neil Flynn Jonathan Bennett
Music by	Rolfe Kent
Cinematography	Daryn Okada
Editing by	Wendy Greene Bricmont
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	April 30, 2004
Running time	97 min.
Country
Language	English
Budget	$17 million
Gross revenue	$129,042,871
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Mean Girls is a 2004 film directed by Mark Waters (Freaky Friday), written by (and co-starring) Tina Fey, and starring Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, and Lacey Chabert. The film also features several Saturday Night Live cast members, including Tina Fey, Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, and Amy Poehler. It has been praised as being Lindsay Lohan's break-out film role.^[1]

Director Mark Waters described the movie as "Clueless meets Heathers,"^[2] the latter of which was written by his brother, Daniel Waters. Mean Girls is based on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman, which describes how female high school social cliques operate, and the effect they can have on girls. Similar to its inspirations Clueless and Heathers, the film was a sleeper hit, and generated much discussion upon its release on high school cliques and bullying, despite the film being a light-hearted approach to those subjects.^{[citation needed]}

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Reception
4 Box office
5 Soundtrack
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Plot

Now living in an affluent area of suburban Chicago (Evanston, Illinois), Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) has been raised by her parents in Africa. At age 16, she moves to America to attend public school, after having been home schooled all her life. On the first day, she is surprised by all the rules and restrictions that high school has. She struggles to fit in, but meets two students, Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan), a rebellious girl, and Damian (Daniel Franzese), her "too-gay-to-function" friend, who decide to show her around and offer her insight into the cliques and hierarchy of the school. At the top of the social ladder are a trio of girls known as "The Plastics," a group of popular and spiteful girls who rule the roost: Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried), Gretchen Wieners (Lacey Chabert) and the acid-tongued Regina George (Rachel McAdams). Regina is considered the "Queen Bee" of the school and is adored by all the other girls in the school, who hold her in such high esteem that even being punched in the face by her is considered an honour. Janis detests Regina, which Cady later finds out stems from the fact that Regina spread rumors about her sexuality.

One day, Cady is invited to sit with The Plastics at lunch in the cafeteria where seating is important and restricted to cliques. Afterwards, Janis and Damian convince Cady to eat lunch with them again, so she can report back to them everything The Plastics say and do. For example, Cady is introduced to "The Burn Book" in which insulting comments are made about the other girls. At the same time, Cady develops a crush on Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett). Gretchen and Karen tell her that Aaron was Regina's ex-boyfriend, and therefore, he is off-limits. Although Gretchen promises to keep Cady's crush a secret, she tells Regina. Devising a plan, Regina offers to help Cady win Aaron. During their calculus class, he invites her to a Halloween party. At the party, Regina finds Aaron and kisses him. Cady is infuriated and decides to leave The Plastics. Janis, however, stops her, convincing Cady to keep hanging out with them so that they can get revenge.

Regina wishes to lose a few pounds, but Cady gives her "Kälteen" bars, telling Regina they would help her lose weight very quickly, but were actually used for the children in Africa to gain weight very quickly. Cady also begins to speak to Aaron once again, pretending that she is horrible at math (when in actuality, she is quite good and is asked to join the Mathletes several times). Finally, Cady is able to manipulate Gretchen and Karen into getting angry at Regina, so that eventually Regina is kicked out of The Plastics.

However, Cady has begun to act exactly like Regina, much to Janis' displeasure. As soon as The Plastics kick Regina out of their group, Cady becomes the most popular girl at the school. She throws a small get-together at her house that turns into a huge party. Slightly drunk, Cady tries to make a move on Aaron, but he sees through her, calling her a "clone" of Regina and rejecting her advances. She loses her friendship with Janis and Damian, who now hate her just as much as they hated Regina. Regina discovers that "Kalteen" bars make her put on weight, which has been ruining her life. Regina decides to now ruin Cady's life.

Regina gives "The Burn Book" to her principal at school, Mr. Duvall (Tim Meadows), and frames the remaining members of The Plastics for writing it. She first makes numerous photocopies of its pages. Distributing these copies around the whole school, she causes all the girls to turn against each other. Outraged, Mr. Duvall gathers all of the junior girls into the gymnasium for an attitude makeover. Cady's math teacher, Ms. Norbury, is asked to take charge of the workshop. The girls are made to confess the bad things they have done and said about their peers.

Janis, still angry at Cady, tells everyone about how Cady, Damian and herself thought up a nasty plan to ruin Regina's life. Regina walks out and Cady attempts to apologize, but Regina refuses to forgive her. Regina is then hit by a school bus. The following day, rumors about Regina's accident start to float around school. One rumor states that Cady pushed Regina in front of the bus, which makes even Cady's own parents distrust her.

Cady ends up alone with no friends. She enters math class to discover that her teacher, Ms. Norbury (Tina Fey), has been taken away because of accusations of her being a drug dealer, as stated in the Burn Book. Also in the Burn Book was a page about a coach having an affair with two of his students. It turned out to be true, which forced the school to check each of the book's accusations. Cady decides to step up and admit that she wrote the book (although she only wrote the rumor about Ms. Norbury selling drugs). Ms. Norbury's punishment of Cady is to make her join the Mathletes.

Although Cady is grounded by her father for a failing grade in math (since she dumbed herself down to get Aaron's attention), she leaves her house to attend a Mathlete competition. At the same time, the rest of the school prepares for the Spring Fling, a school dance. Cady comes to some realizations about life and manages to win the Mathlete competition in the last minute. Ms. Norbury forgives her.

After the competition, the Mathletes attend the Spring Fling, where Cady is announced as Queen of Spring Fling. Cady thinks she doesn't deserve the title after all she has done and breaks her crown into small pieces to give to other students. She then makes amends with The Plastics, Janis, Damian and finally Aaron.

The following school year, The Plastics break up, with Gretchen joining the "The Cool Asians," Karen presenting the morning weather announcements (she states that her breasts can detect when it is raining) and Regina taking up lacrosse. Cady is now dating Aaron and has become friends with everyone in her senior class.

[edit] Cast

Lindsay Lohan as Cady Heron
Rachel McAdams as Regina George
Tina Fey as Ms. Sharon Norbury
Tim Meadows as Mr. Ron Duvall
Lacey Chabert as Gretchen Wieners
Jonathan Bennett as Aaron Samuels
Amy Poehler as Mrs. George
Lizzy Caplan as Janis Ian
Amanda Seyfried as Karen Smith
Daniel Franzese as Damian
Ana Gasteyer as Mrs. Heron
Neil Flynn as Mr. Heron

[edit] Reception

In an interview about the film, Fey noted, "Adults find it funny. They are the ones who are laughing. Young people watch it like a reality television show. It is much too close to their real experiences so they are not exactly guffawing."^[3] Generally it was well reviewed by critics, receiving an 85% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes^[4] and a 66 ("Generally favorable reviews") on Metacritic.^[5]

[edit] Box office

The movie was declared an instant success after its opening weekend made the film $24.4 million and the #1 film in America at 2,839 theaters.^[6] Due to strong word of mouth, Mean Girls had a long life at the box office and finished its run with $86,058,055 in the United States making its worldwide total gross $129,042,871.^[7]

In the US, the film was the 24th highest grossing movie of 2004.^[7] The film was later nominated for the prestigious WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.^[8]