Auli'i Cravalho Archives

Review: ‘Mean Girls’ (2024), starring Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, Auli’i Cravalho and Christopher Briney

January 13, 2024

by Carla Hay

Avantika, Reneé Rapp, Bebe Wood and Angourie Rice in “Mean Girls” (Photo by Jojo Whilden/Paramount Pictures)

“Mean Girls” (2024)

Directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr.

Culture Representation: Taking place in Evanston, lllinois, the musical film “Mean Girls” (adapted from the “Mean Girls” stage musical, which is based on 2004 “Mean Girls” movie) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Asians and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A new transfer student in high school infiltrates a popular clique to sabotage the clique’s bullying leader, but the interloper becomes just as bad as the bully.

Culture Audience: “Mean Girls” will appeal primarily to fans of screenwriter/co-star Tina Fey, the original 2004 movie, the “Mean Girls” stage musical and comedic musical movies about teenage life that don’t have many surprises.

Jaquel Spivey, Angourie Rice and Auli’i Cravalho in “Mean Girls” (Photo by Jojo Whilden/Paramount Pictures)

Although not as funny as the 2004 “Mean Girls” movie, this musical version is still entertaining overall, despite a few missteps. The cast members’ performances are better than the songs. If you’re inclined to dislike musicals, then “Mean Girls” is probably isn’t going to change your mind. However, for people who are like or tolerate musicals, this version of “Mean Girls” will probably be enjoyable enough to not feel like a complete waste of time.

Directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., “Mean Girls” is adapted from the “Mean Girls” stage musical, which is based on the 2004 “Mean Girls” movie. Tina Fey wrote the screenplays for both “Mean Girls” movies, as well as the book for the “Mean Girls” stage musical, which was on Broadway from 2018 to 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic essentially killed “Mean Girls” on Broadway when Broadway theaters were shut down from March 2020 to September 2021, but a touring version of “Mean Girls” still exists.

The “Mean Girls” movie was inspired by Rosalind Wiseman’s 2002 self-help book “Queen Bees and Wannabes.” And when the 2004 “Mean Girls” movie (starring Lindsay Lohan and directed by Mark Waters) was released, it was often described as a more family-friendly version of 1989’s dark comedy “Heathers” (starring Winona Ryder and directed by Michael Lehmann), because it had a similar story: A new transfer student in high school goes from being unpopular outcast to being accepted into the school’s most popular (and snobbiest) clique to replacing the “queen bee” of the clique. There’s also the vastly forgettable 2011 made-for-TV sequel “Mean Girls 2,” which was televised on the network then known as ABC Family.

In other words, there isn’t much of anything that’s original in this movie musical version of “Mean Girls,” which is updated from the 2004 “Mean Girls” movie by having a more racially diverse principal cast and having social media incorporated into the story. People who’ve seen the original “Mean Girls” movie and/or the “Mean Girls” stage musical will be curious to see how this “Mean Girls” musical movie is different. There are no bold and innovative changes.

The 2024 version of “Mean Girls” keeps the story of how 16-year-old Cady Heron (played by Angourie Rice), who is the only child of American parents, has been homeschooled in Kenya for most of life. When she and her family move back to the United States, Cady transfers to North Shore High School in Evanston, Illinois. (This version of “Mean Girls” was actually filmed in New Jersey.)

In the original “Mean Girls” movie, Cady is being raised by two married parents. In the “Mean Girls” musical movie, Cady is being raised by a single mother (played by Jenna Fischer), who doesn’t have a first name in the movie. Cady’s mother was a teacher in Kenya and has accepted a job at Northwestern University. There is no mention of Cady’s father in 2024’s “Mean Girls,” but the Cady character in both movies comes from a loving and supportive household.

In 2004’s “Mean Girls,” Cady was the narrator. In the 2024’s “Mean Girls,” the narrators are sassy Damian Hubbard (played by Jaquel Spivey) and cynical Janis ‘Imi’ike (played by Auliʻi Cravalho), two openly queer students and best friends at North Shore High School. Damian and Janis are in the movie’s opening scene, where they are shown recording a music video called “Cautionary Tale” on a phone. Janis is singing playing guitar, while Damian is singing and playing the tambourine.

It’s an introduction for Damian and Janis to tell the story of Cady and how she shook up the social hierarchy at North Shore High School. During Cady’s first few days at school, she is shunned or ignored by most of the students, except for Damian and Janis, who are also social outsiders at the school. Cady welcomes the friendship of Damian and Janis, who both tell Cady how much they dislike an all-girl clique at the school called the Plastics, who are the most elitist and popular clique in the school. A few years before, Regina (Janis’ former best friend) “outed” Janis as a lesbian, and it caused Janis to be the target of homophobic harassment.

The Plastics are physically pretty but they have the ugly personalities of being snobs and bullies. The leader of the Plastics is “queen bee” Regina George (played by Reneé Rapp), who only seems to be popular because of her looks and because she comes from a rich family. The other Plastics are Regina’s sidekicks: gossipy Gretchen Wieners (played by Bebe Wood) and dimwitted Karen Shetty (played by Avantika), who basically do whatever Regina wants them to do. The Plastics have certain dress code rules that Regina has dictated, such as they have to wear pink on Wednesdays, and they can only wear casual sweat clothing on Fridays.

One day, Regina invites Cady to sit with the Plastics at a table in the school’s cafeteria. It’s a rare invitation that immediately catches the attention of other students. Regina’s original intention is to insult and embarrass Cady. But when Regina sees how friendly and unthreatening Cady is, Regina decides that she can manipulate and control Cady into becoming one of the Plastics.

Meanwhile, Cady (who is a math whiz) gets an instant crush on an attractive guy who sits in front of her in their AP calculus class: Aaron Samuels (played by Christopher Briney), who happens to be Regina’s ex-boyfriend. Cady, who is bashful when talking to Aaron, doesn’t find out until after she has feelings for him that Aaron and Regina used to be a couple. Cady also finds out that Aaron was the one who dumped Regina, who wants to get back together with him.

“Mean Girls” writer/co-star Fey reprises her role as Ms. Norbury, the school’s AP calculus teacher. Tim Meadows also returns as North Shore High School principal Mr. Duvall. Just like in 2004’s “Mean Girls,” on Cady’s first day at North Shore, Mr. Duvall introduces Cady to her homeroom class, which is taught by Ms. Norbury. However, in 2024’s “Mean Girls,” Mr. Duvall and Ms. Norbury are now a couple, which was a romance that was hinted at the end of 2004’s “Mean Girls.”

Damian and Janis want to get revenge on Regina, so they urge Cady to join the Plastics clique, with the intention to sabotage Regina’s life. Part of their plan is have Cady get together with Aaron, so that Regina’s heart will be broken. Cady eagerly goes along with this plan because she wants Aaron for herself. For much of the movie, Cady is part of the Plastics, while secretly maintaining a friendship with Damian and Janis.

Soon after Regina has decided that Cady will be part of the Plastics, she invites Cady to hang out with her, Gretchen and Karen in Regina’s home. It’s here that Regina shows Cady her secret Burn Book, a pink, photo-album-sized book that has photos of people in the school with vicious insults written next to each photo. This notorious Burn Book predictably becomes a major source of conflict in the story.

Regina’s mother Mrs. George (played by Busy Philipps) is a ditzy, eager-to-please parent, who spoils Regina and acts like she wants to be Regina’s best friend. In both “Mean Girls” movies, Ms. George is one of the funniest characters, but her screen time is limited. That’s because the teenage perspective is the driving force of “Mean Girls,” which goes through the expected story beats of friendship betrayals and academic challenges, in backdrops such as classrooms, a school dance and the sterotypical teenage house party with no parents at home.

Although the cast members of the “Mean Girls” movie musical are all very talented, they don’t have the same special chemistry of the cast in 2004’s “Mean Girls.” The 2024 movie version of “Mean Girls” also doesn’t do anything new or interesting with the supporting characters, who drift in and out of the story in ways that don’t look as natural as they were in 2004’s “Mean Girls.” And because 2024’s “Mean Girls” is a musical, it uses hyper-realism during the musical numbers that takes a lot of bite out of the sharp comedy that 2004’s “Mean Girls” had.

Kevin Ganatra (played by Mahi Alam), the leader of the school’s math club, is the same type of nerdy character as the Kevin Gnapoor character (played by Rajiv Surendra) in 2004’s “Mean Girls.” He flirts with Cady but ends up with another student at the end of the movie. (The 2024 version “Mean Girls” changes who that student is.)

The other teachers at North Shore have very quick cameos, none of which are crucial to the story. These scenes could have been much better. Physical education teacher Coach Carr (played by Jon Hamm) teaches sex education and makes inappropriate comments that fall flat as jokes. French teacher Madame Park (played by Ashley Park, who played Gretchen in the “Mean Girls” stage musical) has a not-very-funny scene of her telling Damian to pick a French name for him to use in class. Literature teacher Mr. Rapp (played by Connor Ratliff) is mostly forgettable.

Jason Weems (played by John El-Jor) is a mischievous brat who is Gretchen’s love interest. However, his character is very underdeveloped in 2024’s “Mean Girls,” compared to the larger and funnier role that the Jason character (played by Daniel DeSanto) had in 2004’s “Mean Girls.” The Aaron character is blander in 2024’s “Mean Girls” than the Aaron character (played by Jonathan Bennett) in 2004’s “Mean Girls.” Gretchen (played by Lacey Chabert in 2004’s “Mean Girls”) is also still the same character in both movies, with no real dialogue improvement.

Worst of all, the character of Karen is made even more vapid in 2024’s “Mean Girls,” in ways that aren’t very funny and are borderline offensive. Karen Smith (played by Amanda Seyfried), one of the Plastics in 2004’s “Mean Girls,” wasn’t smart either, but at least had more of a personality and amusing lines of dialogue. The Karen in 2024’s “Mean Girls” has the personality of a blank space.

Original “Mean Girls” star Lohan makes an unremarkable cameo as a moderator for a math competition. It’s a squandered opportunity. The lines of dialogue that she has are very dull, with one only small sly nod to Lohan’s real-life troubles that tarnished her reputation and acting career. A better cameo for Lohan would have had her as a North Shore teacher or a parent of one of the North Shore students.

Damian in 2024’s “Mean Girls” is campier than in 2004’s “Mean Girls,” while Janis in 2024’s “Mean Girls” isn’t as hot-tempered as the Janis in 2004’s “Mean Girls.” In 2004’s “Mean Girls” Janis is presented as a heterosexual who was offended at being misidentified as a lesbian. Janis in 2024’s “Mean Girls” is really a lesbian and has a love interest named Grace Porter (played by Morgen McKynzie), who is a student at North Shore and barely says anything in the movie. It makes Grace look like a token.

As for the musical numbers, they are well-performed by the cast members (Rapp and Cravalho are the standout singers), but the movie switches to fantasy staging during the musical sequences. This abrupt shift in tone might be off-putting to some viewers. The sight of fake wind blowing through people’s hair, or school hallways having disco-ball-type lighting during song-and-dance numbers will be something that people might or might not find hard to take in a “Mean Girls” story.

The songs (music by Jeff Richmond, lyrics by Nell Benjamin) are good, but not outstanding. An original song called “What Ifs” (co-written with Rapp) replaces “It Roars” as the first song that Cady sings. For time-length reasons, there are less songs in the movie musical than in the stage musical, which has 18 songs.

“Stupid With Love” is still a showstopper, while Regina’s anthem “Someone Gets Hurt” is a definite highlight. The songs from the “Mean Girls” stage musical that aren’t in the “Mean Girls” movie musical are “Where Do You Belong?,” “Fearless,” “Stop,” “Whose House Is This?,” “More Is Better” and “Do This Thing.” Janis doesn’t get her time shine with a solo lead vocal (“I’d Rather Be Me”) until the movie is almost over, which is something that the movie should have corrected by giving Janis an original song showcase much earlier in the story.

In the talent show scene, Damian sings the theme to “iCarly,” compared to the 2004 movie, which had the better choice of Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” as the song that Damian sings in the talent show. In the 2024 “Mean Girls” movie, “Rockin’ Around the Pole” is the song choice for the Plastics’ talent show performance, which is an inferior replacement for “Jingle Bell Rock,” the song that the Plastics performed in the 2004 “Mean Girls” talent show scene. Megan Thee Stallion, who has a cameo as herself during the 2024 “Mean Girls” movie’s social-media montages, teamed up with Rapp for the soundtrack single “Not My Fault,” which is not performed in a musical scene in the movie, but it’s the type of original change that the movie needed.

Rapp’s version of Regina (she also played the role on Broadway from 2019 to 2020) is much more of a sneering and obvious villain than Rachel McAdams’ version of Regina in 2004’s “Mean Girls.” They are different but equally effective performances. Rice is quite good in her role as Cady, but it would be difficult for most people to surpass Lohan’s iconic performance in “Mean Girls,” the movie that was the high point of Lohan’s career in the 2000s.

The showdown between Regina and Cady in 2004’s “Mean Girls” was much more fun to watch than in the 2024 version, which makes a change to a certain bus-accident scene that probably won’t sit well with some fans of the 2004 movie. However, the 2024 version of “Mean Girls” was wise enough to keep some of the more famous catch-phrases from the 2004 movie. One of them is “Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen.”

The 2024 version of “Mean Girls” is the feature-film debut of directors Jayne and Perez, who are frequent collaborators. They bring an upbeat and candy-coated style to the “Mean Girls” story, which is well-suited for a musical. The costume design in 2004’s “Mean Girls” had better taste and still looks good decades later, compared to the overly trendy (and sometimes trashy-looking) costume design of 2024’s “Mean Girls. Fans of the original “Mean Girls” movie might miss the funnier jokes and the edgier undertones that the 2004 movie had. The 2024 “Mean Girls” movie plays it safe, but should satisfy viewers who want to watch a comedic musical that has expected outcomes.

Paramount Pictures released “Mean Girls” in U.S. cinemas on January 12, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on February 20, 2024. The 2004 and 2024 versions of “Mean Girls” will also be available in a two-movie collection on digital on February 20, 2024. “Mean Girls” (2024) will be released on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on April 30, 2024, the same date that “Mean Girls” (2004) will be released on 4K Ultra HD.

Review: ‘Darby and the Dead,’ starring Riele Downs and Auli’i Cravalho

January 2, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Darby and the Dead”

Directed by Silas Howard

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the fantasy comedy film “Darby and the Dead” features a racially diverse cast of characters (African American, white, Asian and Latino) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After a popular but snobby girl in high school dies in a freak accident, she returns as a ghost to haunt her psychic former best friend to throw a tribute party for her, and the former friend goes from being a social outcast to being the most popular student in the school.

Culture Audience: “Darby and the Dead” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching teen comedies that are “dumbed down” for audiences, and lazily mix together plots that were in superior movies.

Riele Downs, Asher Angel and Auli’i Cravalho in “Darby and the Dead” (Photo by Marcos Cruz/20th Century Studios/Hulu)

The cringeworthy comedy “Darby and the Dead” is as fresh and funny as a rotting corpse. This dreadful dud relentlessly insults its characters and viewers, as it clumsily rips off ideas from better movies. It’s easy to see why 20th Century Studios dumped “Darby and the Dead” on a streaming service instead of releasing the movie in theaters: “Darby and the Dead” is the type of awful movie that viewers would want refunds for if they had the misfortune of buying movie tickets for it.

Directed by Silas Howard, “Darby and the Dead” (written by Becca Greene and Wenonah Wilms) was originally titled “Darby Harper Wants You to Know.” It’s about a psychic teenage girl who can see dead people and is then haunted by a former best friend while they argue about issues having to do with cliques and popularity at their high school. You don’t have to be a psychic to know that this subject matter has been so overdone with predictable endings in comedy films about teenagers, any movie with the same concept has do something special to stand out from the forgettable mediocrity of most of these formulaic teen films.

Unfortunately, everything about “Darby and the Dead” looks like it was made by out-of-touch adults who took the cheesiest aspects of teen comedies from the 1980s and 1990s and just shoveled it into “Darby and the Dead” while making a few technological updates for the early 2020s. “Darby and the Dead” has the benefit of some talented cast members, but they don’t have believable chemistry as friends or enemies in the movie. In “Darby and the Dead,” they look exactly like what they are: cast members in their 20s pretending to be teens in high school and trying too hard to be comical while saying their very unfunny lines of dialogue.

The title character of “Darby and the Dead” is Darby Harper (played Riele Downs), a sarcastic loner, who’s about 16 or 17 years old. Darby is also a psychic who lives with her widowed father Ben (played by Derek Luke) in an unnamed U.S. city. (“Darby and the Dead” was actually filmed in South Africa.) Darby’s constant voiceover narration gets annoying after a while, because what she thinks are witty observations are actually just dull rants from a teenager who doesn’t want to admit that she’s bitter about her life.

When she was 7 years old, Darby (played by Milan Maphike) witnessed her mother (played by Kim Syster) drown while they were both swimming in an ocean. The movie also shows a brief flashback of Darby (played by Emily Maphike), when Darby was about 13 or 14 years old. “I was never the same,” Darby explains about how the death of her mother changed Darby. “I see dead people everywhere. The dead needed my help.” Darby says she turned her back on the living world and started what she calls her “side hustle: counseling dead people.”

She calls herself a “spiritual messenger, of sorts” and the ghosts who still haunt Earth have “unfinished business.” Darby further explains what happened to the ghosts who received her help: “Spirits were able to cross over, which is pretty beautiful. Word spread in the purgatory circuit, and my after-school job took off. There’s no pay, but if dead people’s gratitude had value, I’d be [Amazon’s billionaire founder] Jeff Bezos.”

Now that it’s been established that Darby has such a huge ego, she thinks she’s the Jeff Bezos of the ghost world, Darby becomes quite insufferable for much of the movie, as she shows a mixture of self-pity and arrogance about being a pariah at her high school. On the one hand, Darby likes to brag about how she thinks she’s too smart and too special to mingle with the common people who go to her high school. On the other hand, it’s obvious that she desperately craves their approval.

One of the reasons why she’s treated like an outsider is that anti-social Darby talks out loud to the ghosts that no one else can see. Therefore, people wonder if Darby has some type of mental illness. When it comes to being shunned by her peers, Darby also puts a lot of blame on her former best friend Capri Donohue (played by Auli’i Cravalho), who is a classmate of Darby’s at Frederick Douglass High School. Darby says in a voicever that Capri is the “head phony” at the school, which Darby calls “a torturous realm, where I am forced to spend my days.”

Capri is currently the queen bee of the most popular clique in school. Capri’s three subservient sidekicks are Bree (played by Genneya Walton), Taylor (played by Kylie Liya Page) and Piper (played by Nicole Maines), whose personalities are indistinguishable from each other. Because Darby has a reputation for being weird, Capri ended their friendship. Capri and her “mean girls” clique also ridicule and insult Darby any chance that they can get.

Adding to the animosity between the two ex-pals is (teen comedy cliché alert) they both want to date the same guy. His name is James Harris (played by Asher Angel, in a generic teen boyfriend role), whom Darby describes as a “band geek” she’s had a crush on since sixth grade. However, when James went on “The Voice” TV talent show as a contestant and had his 15 minutes of fame, Capri suddenly took an interest in him, turned on the charm, and now Capri and James are dating each other. James has fallen hard for Capri, but Capri is not nearly as smitten. Capri is interested in James as long as she thinks that dating him will boost her popularity.

Meanwhile (teen comedy cliché alert), a new transfer student named Alex (played by Chosen Jacobs) arrives at the school. Principal Morgan (played by Anthony Oseyemi) tells Darby, of all people, to be Alex’s study buddy in school. It’s quite the unrealistic, meddling reach for a school principal to order a student to be a study buddy for another student who just transferred to the school. Alex is friendly, a little nerdy, and he likes a lot of the same entertainment and literature that Darby likes. And you know what that means.

Maybe the “Darby and the Dead” filmmakers didn’t want to use the tired teen-comedy stereotype of making two potential love interests get assigned by a teacher to be study partners, usually in a biology class. However, by having the school principal force this partnership, it just looks even phonier. At any rate, as soon as Alex meets Darby, and she is rude and standoffish to him, you know exactly what’s going to happen between these two characters later in the movie.

While Darby has voiceover rants about how Capri and her friends are horrendous snobs, Darby doesn’t see the irony that she is almost equally unpleasant and snooty to Alex when she rebuffs his attempts to become her friend. “I’m a lone wolf,” Darby curtly tells Alex. The off-putting tone of “Darby and the Dead” is that viewers are supposed to automatically love Darby’s rudeness because she’s the “underdog” of the story. However, Darby is such a terribly written character (she says multiple times she doesn’t like being around people who are still alive), there’s no good reason to root for her for most of the story.

As part of Darby’s “spiritual guidance” counseling sessions, “Darby and the Dead” has some awkward filler of Darby hanging out with two old men (who are both dead) that is embarrassing to everyone in these movie scenes. A better movie would have had more variety in the types of ghosts that Darby helps, but that would involve creative imagination, which “Darby and the Dead” sorely lacks. It actually comes across as a little creepy that these dead old men have gravitated to this underage teen.

Gary (played by Tony Danza) is a dead janitor who used to work at the high school, but he hasn’t passed on to the other side. He’s waiting for his widow to die and join him, so they can cross over to the other side of the spirit world together. There’s a stupid scene of Darby talking to Gary on the school bleachers, and he gives Darby some cash to pass on to his widow. This scene is as bad as it sounds.

Even worse: Gary introduces Darby to his dead friend Mel (played by Wayne Knight), who died of a heart attack but has not crossed over the other side yet. Mel’s wife died 17 years earlier. Mel is concerned that when he dies, his wife will see him in the body that Mel has now: older and with a lot more weight gain, compared to 17 years ago. Darby assures Mel that when he passes on to the next realm to reunite with his dead wife, Mel will be his “optimal self” (whatever that means). So now, viewers know that not only does Darby think she’s the Jeff Bezos of the ghost world, she also thinks she’s a makeover guru for the ghost world.

Capri’s death doesn’t happen until almost halfway through the movie, which takes entirely too long to get to this plot development, considering “Darby and the Dead” is marketed as a movie that’s mostly about what happens after Capri dies. Capri’s death is another badly written, phony-looking scene: In a school locker room, Capri is holding a plugged-in, hairstyling iron after stealing Darby’s clothes in a bullying incident. Capri accidentally falls down in a shallow body of water while holding the iron, she gets electrocuted, and dies.

You already know what’s going to happen next: Capri won’t cross over into the other realm, Darby can see Capri’s ghost, and the two teens spend a lot of time bickering and getting on each other’s nerves. Capri’s “unfinished business” is that she died before she could have her Sweet 17 birthday party extravaganza. Capri makes a deal with Darby: Capri will leave Darby alone if Darby turns the birthday party into a special tribute for Capri, and Capri will teach Darby how to become the most popular girl in school.

What about Capri’s boyfriend James? “Darby and the Dead” has more terribly staged scenarios over this love triangle. And let’s not forget Alex, who is waiting around and hoping that Darby will wake up and see that Alex is a much better match for her. There are absolutely no surprises in “Darby and the Dead,” which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the movie makes it all so boring and witless.

Downs isn’t horrible in the role of Darby. She’s just been saddled with a horrible script, and she’s just not able to make grumpy Darby all that endearing for most of the movie. There’s only so much whining and pouting that viewers can take from Darby, a teenager who’s actually fairly privileged and is, by her own admission, anti-social by choice.

Cravalho, who’s best known as a singer, might excel in musical roles, such as her voice-starring title role in Disney’s 2016 animated film “Moana.” However, live-action comedy doesn’t appear to be a strong suit for Cravalho, who is too hammy in “Darby and the Dead,” and she needs to work on her comedic timing. Not only is Capri dead for most of the movie, but Capri also has a dead personality. Cravalho tries too hard to be campy in this role, and her performance just doesn’t work well for how this mean-spirited and soulless character is written.

The rest of the cast members are serviceable and don’t do anything special. “Darby and the Dead” fails to impress as a movie that can portray teenagers in ways other than the usual, narrow movie stereotypes. To rephrase the title of a Nirvana song, the teen spirit in “Darby of the Dead” smells like bad filmmaking.

Hulu premiered “Darby and the Dead” on December 2, 2022.