“This isn’t your mother’s Mean Girls.”
On Jan. 12, Mean Girls the musical movie was released in theaters. I decided to brave the blizzard and make my way to the theater on its release day.
As someone who loves the musical version of Mean Girls, I was thrilled when I heard they were turning it into a movie. Yet, I was confused by the trailer. I didn’t expect the music in the teaser to be “get him back!” by Olivia Rodrigo as that is not a song from the musical. Also, the movie was not intentionally advertised as a musical as much as I would have found fitting. Watching the musical film could be unnerving for people who expect it to just be a remake of the original but instead find the characters singing.
However, like with any musical turned into a movie, some sacrifices are made when transferring the show from stage to screen.
A few days prior to the release of the movie, the official song list was released. Upon looking at it, I noticed that a significant amount of songs I enjoyed in the stage version were cut. I was most disappointed that the songs “Where Do You Belong?” and “Stop” wouldn’t make an appearance in the film.
The songs they did include, however, were quite different than their musical counterparts. Besides a few lyric changes, the major difference was how flat the numbers felt. Songs I normally loved on the stage, such as “Stupid With Love” and “I’d Rather Be Me” sounded very different mostly because they were focused on the vocals, and a lot of the beats and notes in the originals weren’t there. There were also a few new original songs: the song “What Ifs” was used in place of “It Roars” from the Broadway version, which I thought was an unnecessary change.
On the other hand, some of the songs were done extremely well with dance numbers and a big ensemble of instruments backing them up. “Revenge Party,” “Sexy,” and “Someone Gets Hurt” were what I thought to be the best numbers in the show and most accurate to the musical version.
Moving on to the cast, only two of the original cast members reprised their roles in the 2024 version, but there is one surprise cameo from the original—I won’t give it away—that made my jaw drop with excitement.
As for the rest of the actors in the new Mean Girls movie, Reneé Rapp did an excellent job portraying the iconic Regina George. Her singing was phenomenal, and rightfully so, seeing as she has played Regina on Broadway in the past.
As someone who watched The Summer I Turned Pretty (TSITP), it was quite difficult to not see Aaron Samuels (Cristopher Briney) as Conrad—the character he played in TSITP—because TSITP is the work that he is most known for. Cady (Angourie Rice) could have been cast better; her acting and portrayal of the character were done great, but her singing was worse than everyone else’s. Auli’i Cravalho, who played Janis, did an excellent job. Her voice was powerful and her harmonies with Damian (Jaquel Spivey) in “A Cautionary Tale” were a fantastic addition to the song.
I also love that Tina Fey and Tim Meadows both returned to the film as Mrs. Norbery and Principal Duvall as those were their roles in the film 20 years prior.
This was just one of the many references I noticed throughout the movie that nodded to the original 2004 version of the film. When Karen chooses her Halloween costume, she holds up Regina’s sabotaged shirt which ends up starting a schoolwide fashion trend in the original film. In principal Duvall’s office, I noticed on the left side of his wall, a photo of him from the original Mean Girls. Finally, during the Mathletes competition, the announcer says that the tie has only happened one other time, referencing the time a tie had taken place in the first film.
While the 2024 Mean Girls follows the same storyline as the 2004 original, it is different in its own ways. It was modernized in some places, which I thought put a new spin on it. For example, instead of gossip being spread on paper copies throughout the hallways, it was spread all over social media, with the occasional appearance of an “influencer” reacting to the news.
Overall, the stage-to-screen adaptation was worth going out in a snowstorm to see. I have enjoyed watching both Mean Girls the movie and musical throughout my life, so I had high expectations on how the stage-to-screen would turn out. Though I was disappointed in some of the music—I highly encourage people to listen to the Broadway soundtrack—I found myself immersed in the story occurring at North Shore High School. As Gretchen would say, it was “so fetch.”
