Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Mean Girls

Next Wednesday night is the Season 1 Finale of 'Best Shot". Together we'll look at the 1955 classic Night of the Hunter which --- well, if you've never seen it, you're in for a major film event. It's appropriately creepy for late October, too. Today, something lighter and flirtier.

MEAN GIRLS (2004)

God, she can be SO annoying.

Few movies from the Aughts have proved as delightfully durable as Mean Girls, the Tina Fey scripted Mark Waters directed comedy that introduced us to Queen Bee Regina George (a total "rock star" performance from Rachel McAdams) and her army of skanks, Gretchen (Lacey Chabert), Karen (Amanda Seyfried) and new girl Cady (Lindsay Lohan) -- "I love her. She's like a Martian" -- transferred in from Africa and experiencing the jungles of public education for the first time. On first viewing back in 2004, its debt to Heathers (1988), another comedy about evil life-ruiner hotties, seemed insurmountable in terms of New Classic! reaction. But Mean Girls has, in the past six years, more than proved its own worth and its own identity. In retrospect the two films feel very different in tone and aesthetic personality, with only the subject matter, mean girls, and über quotability to unite them.  In future years, the next great mean girl classic will be compared unfavorably to both of them.

The best filmmaking choice in the movie, aside from the inspired casting, might be the staging of every character intros. The entire principle cast gets fun intros with the best being reserved for the Queen Bee herself who is literally carried into the picture in slo-motion by her male admirers while a Greek chorus of students fills us in on who she is and why we should be in awe of her. It kicks off with the double conscience of the film Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese)

"And evil takes a human form in Regina George. Don't be fooled. She may seem like your typical selfish back-stabbing slut-faced ho-bag but in reality she is so much more than that. She's the Queen Bee. The star. Those other two are just her little workers... "

. To underline her power, Missy Elliott is on the soundtrack also introducing her...

 "hey hey hey ♫ I'm what's happening."

And Rachel McAdams is indeed what's happening in Mean Girls (especially now that we've had to let our love for LiLo's brief sparkliness go).  Every time you watch it, her performance gets better. A lot of actresses can and have done deliciously bitchy but her deliciously bitchy has so many shadings from stickily sweet (is she for real? why do i want to believe this one moment) to casual bored privilege to tossed off power plays to embarrassment at any hint of runner up status to machiavellian rage spiked with tiny flashes of self-loathing (that Burn Book sabotage moment!). She's damn near unimproveable in the picture.

For best shot, I choose a two-part Regina moment...



I love how the camera tracks Regina through the hallway after she's hatched her brilliant revenge plan. She's regained control of her screaming rage we saw in the prior scene and she's just gliding through the hallways, with a neat hint of actressy athleticism. Gone is the sex kitten and in her place is the marathon runner.

The shot functions like a reverse Hansel & Gretel; the witch is leaving a bread crumb trail. In the bookend shot that follows (also pictured) the camera is still moving but the witch isn't. Witness her hungry self-satisfaction while she watches the children gobble up the crumbs. They're already baking in her oven!

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Finally, I have to end with a gymnasium moment because Amanda Seyfried just slays me as Karen Smith "one of the dumbest girls you'll ever meet".



This scene where Gretchen "apologizes" to her classmates -- 'I can't help it that I'm popular' -- always makes me cackle. Particularly because the punchline is so funny. Karen is watching Gretchen blankfaced and just opens up her arms to receive her friend while everyone else steps away. The funny thing about Karen is actually how innocent she seems, like a mean girl by accident of proximity and stupidity.


The "Best Shot" clique is so fetch

• Dean A believes in kissing cousins.
• Sorta That Guy maps it out for you.
• Okinawa Assault wonders what table you sit at?
• Serious Film thinks Daniel is too gay to function
• Pussy Goes Grrr had never seen the movie before!!!
• Antagony & Ecstasy goes to the mall and notices the gap. Not the Gap.
• Movies Kick Ass Whoa. great minds think alike. Jose and I both got caught up in the Wicked Witch of the North (Shore).
• Awkward is What We Aim For survives a three-way call.
• Andrew R appreciates a "cool mom"

 Previously on "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"

• Angels in America (2003), X-Men (2000), Showgirls (1995), Bring It On (2000), Black Narcissus (1946), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Pandora's Box (1929), Se7en (1995), Requiem for a Dream (2000) and La Dolce Vita (1960)

Related Reading

•  "Let me tell you something about Lindsay Lohan"

Unsung Heroes - The Students of "Election"

This is Michael C. from Serious Film  back again to shine a light on a cinematic achievement that has been hidden for too long in the shadows. This week it is a film I've been an evangelist for since it's release over a decade ago: Alexander Payne's Election (1999). Pick Flick!

Is there any setting more misrepresented in movies than high school? Courtrooms, maybe, or hospitals with their staffs four times bigger than anywhere you could actually find. But at least these places use reality as a jumping off point. The majority of movie high schools, with their student bodies straight from central casting and their campuses the size of Ivy League universities, appear to have been fabricated completely to fit the needs of Hollywood producers.

When a movie like Alexander Payne's Election (1999) finally comes along, which rings true in detail after detail, one wonders what they did differently. The success of Payne's film is undoubtedly in large part due to his decision to shoot in a real high school while classes were in session, and to use the actual students of Papillion La Vista High School generously throughout the film. It may seem like a minor decision, but it adds a crucial air of credibility to the movie.

For one thing, they look real high students. It may seem like an obvious point, but it actually makes Election quite a rare specimen. Most movie students look like they're pushing thirty, and dress as if they are on their way to a commercial shoot for Axe body spray. Acting ability aside, the mere act of going through wardrobe and make-up adds a layer of polish that audiences register. In Election, even the more dramatic moments of the story -- Tammy's speech, Mr. McAllister's sabotage --feel less like scripted plot points because the unaffected presence of real students subliminally signals to the viewer that nothing phony is happening.

That realism must also have rubbed off on Broderick and Witherspoon who both deliver performances that stand as career high points. According to the DVD commentary, Payne frequently sent in real students to improvise with his stars. Knowing that their performances were going to be so readily judged against the genuine article must have worked as a safeguard against putting in too many actorly touches. It is especially impressive that Election manages the feat of meshing Witherspoon believably into the mass of ordinary teens, considering she is as glamorous a star as we've got, and Tracy Flick as a role is full of invitations to go over-the-top.

On top of all these benefits, some of the kids are just plain good. Lots of moments that stand out in my memory from Election are the little bits of documentary realism from the students. The kids who ramble through their explanations of morals vs. ethics set the stage perfectly for Tracy and her "Ooh, ooh, call on me!" routine. I also love the boy who delivers that strange cackling heckle when Tammy takes the microphone and the girl who lets loose with a few dance moves when the crowd is chanting Tammy's name. And the kid who ad-libs reasons to Broderick why he needs to retake a test has a naturalism that a lot of pros could learn from.

It's telling that for all its arch filmmaking touches, Election feels more authentic than just about any other high school movies one could name.
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