A ChucksConnection Film Review

 

Lizzy Caplan wears black high top Converse “Chuck Taylor” All Stars in the film.

Lindsay Lohan wears black high top Converse “Chuck Taylor” All Stars in the film.

Mean Girls

 

by Marcus Angulo

Cady gets ready to turn Gretchen.

 

You can’t just make fetch happen, just like you can’t just make a movie a classic. It has to happen organically over time. People go to see a teen comedy focused on high school drama and they don’t necessarily expect it to have some of the most memorable one-liners and film moments of the millennium. You don’t realize when making the movie that in the next decade that memes will become a thing and that nearly everything in the film you’re making will be “memeable”. You don’t know that this film will be turned into a Broadway musical that will then become a musical film based on the musical based on the film. You can’t make any of that happen so stop trying, Gretchen. Mean Girls is a teen comedy written by Tina Fey that has become a certified classic in the twenty years since it was released in 2004. The film stars Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, Lacey Chabert, Lizzy Caplan, Daniel Franzese, Jonathan Bennett, Tim Meadows, Amy Poehler, and Tina Fey, and stands as possibly the teen film of the 2000s.

Halloween is much cooler watching horror movies on a couch.

Cady Heron (Lohan) is a sixteen-year-old girl who has spent most of her young life being homeschooled by her parents while they did research in Africa. After 12 years abroad, the family moves to Evanston, Illinois where Cady must join North Shore High School. Her first day is an utter disaster, as she has never socialized with American kids before and knows nothing of cliques and social structures. The next day, she befriends the school’s outsiders, Janis Ian (Caplan) and Damian Leigh (Franzese). They take Cady under their wings and teach her everything she needs to know about North Shore. They go over all the cliques and tell her about the "Plastics". The “Plastics” are a clique consisting of the wealthy but insecure Gretchen Wieners (Chabert), sweet but dumb Karen Smith (Seyfried), and the "queen bee" Regina George (McAdams). Cady is invited to sit with the “Plastics” and Janis convinces her to spy on them. Cady also starts crushing on Aaron Samuels (Bennett), a senior and Regina’s ex-boyfriend.

 

You’re not supposed to be in here, Damien.

 

As Cady starts spying on the “Plastics”, she doesn’t see what’s so bad about the group. At first, Regina seems nice and even willing to help Cady get Aaron to like her back. However, Regina uses this to get back with Aaron and break Cady’s heart. Cady resolves to end the “Plastics” with Janis and Damien’s help, breaking up the group and humiliating Regina in the process. However, this goal leads Cady down an unexpected path where she actually begins to like being a “Plastic”. She likes dressing up, gossiping, and letting her bad side fly. Will the sweet and kind Cady ever return or will she stay a mean girl forever?

 

Cady also wears chucks in a few scenes.

This movie is classic, no ifs, ands, or buts. The iconic moments are iconic for a reason and that reason is primarily the cast. Lindsay Lohan is the center of this movie and she perfectly navigates between naive, unknowing Cady and mean girl Cady over the course of the film in a way that is believable. Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, and Lacey Chabert are perfect as the “Plastics” and each brings something to their characters that no other actor could. The writing is also standout as Tina Fey's script combines incredibly funny jokes with great characters. It is an early 2000s comedy so some of the jokes haven’t aged well, but you have to take that as it is. This movie will stand the test of time though, and through it all anyone who watches will agree on one thing: Fetch is never going to happen, Gretchen.

Best Chucks Scene

Janis wears black high top chucks throughout this film.

 

The best chucks scene in the movie actually comes at the very beginning when we are first introduced to Janis. Janis is incredibly rebellious and dressed in an era-appropriate pop-punk style complete with black high top chucks. We first meet her and Damien when Cady tries to find her place at North Shore. They have her meet them at “health class” which ends up being out past the school track. There, Janis and Damien introduce Cady to Regina and the “Plastics”. This scene perfectly establishes the world within North Shore and Janis’ chucks tell us everything we need to know about her and who she is in one shot.

Cady, don’t sit with them!

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