Lindsay Lohan

Mean Girls

20/01/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

It’s 10.30 on Saturday morning, and we’re already at the cinema, settled in for the day’s first screening. Because who’s got the patience to wait for a musical reboot of Mean Girls? Certainly not us.

We re-watched the 2004 original last night and were surprised at how fresh it felt. Sure, there were a few (quite a few) wince-inducing ‘of-its-time’ moments, but overall it was still funny, smart and subtly subversive.

As you’d expect, this 2024 version – based on the 2017 Broadway musical adaptation and directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr – has been cleverly updated. Not only do we have social media, we also have a more diverse cast. Cady has been living in a country (Kenya) rather than a continent (Africa), and Janis is actually allowed to be gay.

For anyone who’s been living under a (30) rock, Tina Fey’s sassy script is a high school comedy/coming-of-age tale. Teenager Cady (Angourie Rice) has just arrived in the USA from Kenya, where her zoologist mum (Jenna Fischer) has been conducting some research. Previously home-educated, Cady is desperate to go to school, to mix with other kids and find out what she’s been missing. But the transition isn’t easy. High school is a jungle too, and Cady doesn’t know the rules of this new territory…

Initially befriended by happy misfits Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), Cady soon comes to the attention of The Plastics – a trio of vacuous ‘popular’ girls at the top of the social pecking order. Much to everyone’s surprise, queen bee Regina George (Reneé Rapp) invites the gauche newcomer to hang out with them. It’s flattering to be asked so, when Janis suggests seizing the opportunity to infiltrate the group and feed back any intel, Cady doesn’t take much persuading. She soon finds that she actually likes Regina’s acolytes, Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika) – and that she wants to please Regina too.

When Cady falls for her calculus classmate, Aaron (Christopher Briney), Regina reveals her mean streak by seducing him, and Cady’s own dark side comes into force. She, Janis and Damian wage war on Regina, determined to topple her – and make Aaron dump her. But Cady enjoys wielding her new-found power just a little too much, and before she knows it she’s sacrificing her real friends. Has she actually become a Plastic?

Mean Girls 2024 has all the verve and wit of the original and the musical numbers (by Jeff Richmond) really work, dialling up the histrionics and highlighting the humour. Rice is delightful in the lead role, and it’s great to see the original Cady, Lindsay Lohan, in a cameo. Tina Fey and Tim Meadows reprise their roles of Ms Norbury and Mr Duvall, and this works extremely well. Indeed, Fey looks almost exactly the same in both movies (I guess there’s an ageing picture in an attic somewhere). The supporting roles are more fleshed out here too, and I like learning more about both Karen and Gretchen.

I’m a little sad that the fat-shaming hasn’t been eradicated, that the nastiest trick Cady and her friends can play is to make a girl gain weight. Worse, the extra pounds Regina’s carrying actually have a greater impact in this incarnation, as the Plastics’ dance routine is ruined because she’s too heavy to lift. This feels like a blind-spot in an otherwise fabulous film.

It’s not enough to spoil things though. The new Mean Girls delivers just what it’s supposed to: a couple of hours of lively, well-crafted and eminently quotable fun. “Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen!”

4.3 stars

Susan Singfield

First Reformed

13/07/18

Paul Schrader is most famous for writing Taxi Driver, Martin Scorscese’s devastating study of a lonely outsider driven to an act of extreme violence – but as a director, he has never really quite hit the mark. There was his fitful remake of Cat People in 1982; his study of the Japanese poet Mishima in 1985; and, more recently, his self-produced film, The Canyons, which attempted (unsuccessfully) to revive the flagging career of Lindsay Lohan. First Reformed arrives in the UK garlanded with praise by the American critics and it certainly represents Schrader’s most assured work as a director, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, the story it most resembles is Taxi Driver. It’s as though he can’t quite shrug off the influence of his finest achievement, even after all these years.

Ethan Hawke plays the Reverend Toller, resident priest of the titular church, an ancient clapboard affair that these days is more a haunt for tourists and souvenir-collectors than an actual congregation. Toller has experienced some misery in his recent past – his son, a soldier, died on active service in Iraq, and Toller’s marriage has subsequently failed because of that loss. It’s clear he’s been given this post mostly out of sympathy and he’s doing his level best to handle the role, but he’s increasingly troubled by the fact that his church is just a small part of a much bigger concern called Abundant Life, whose major benefactor is one Edward Balq (Michael Gaston), a local businessman who has his fingers in some very dodgy – and environmentally damaging – enterprises. To add to his problems, Reverend Toller is suffering from some kind of intestinal cancer and is existing mostly on a diet of whisky and Pepto Bismol.

Then he’s approached by young parishioner, Mary (Amanda Seyfried, taking a break from her usual more lightweight roles). She is pregnant but deeply concerned about her partner, Michael (Philip Ettinger), an environmental activist, who is clearly having doubts about bringing a child into such a troubled world. Toller agrees to talk to the young man and finds himself increasingly agreeing with Michael’s point of view. As events develop, he is also irresistibly drawn to Mary herself. And, as he struggles to deal with that realisation, he begins to contemplate an act of unspeakable violence…

This is an extremely dour and sombre film, shot in desaturated colour and projected in an almost square 1:37:1 ratio. The interiors of Toller’s house are distressingly bare and there’s a strange, almost subliminal score, courtesy of Brian Williams, that seems to amp up the sense of alienation we share with him. Hawke is excellent in the title role and the central premise of the aspirations of the church having to bow down in the face of big business are deftly explored. It’s by no means a perfect film – and I can’t help feeling that some of the praise that’s been lavished upon it may have been somewhat exaggerated – but it’s compelling enough to see you through to its odd and profoundly unsettling conclusion. Is it possible for a priest to maintain his faith in such a corrupt and devastated world? Does religion even have a place in it? Schrader’s film is brave enough to ask the questions, even if it can’t quite supply the answers.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney