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Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey, Rachel McAdams and Lacey Chabert (2004)

Lindsay Lohan and Tina Fey Nude
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Synopsis of the DVD Movie: Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey, Rachel McAdams and Lacey Chabert (2004)

Lindsay Lohan

Raised in the African bush country by her zoologist parents, Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) thinks she knows about "survival of the fittest." But the law of the jungle takes on a whole new meaning when the home-schooled 15-year-old enters public high school for the first time and falls prey to the psychological warfare and unwritten social rules that teenage girls face today.

DVD Movie Rating for: Mean Girls

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Movie Plot of: Mean Girls

Her parents being zoologists, Cady Heron has never known what "high school" truly meant. She lived her first 15 years in the African jungle, home-schooled, living life with only her parents and the animals of the wilderness, knowing all of the rules of survival. However, when she moves out of Africa, she has to learn the rules of high school, a jungle in itself. She instantly makes friends with two sweet teenagers, Damian and Janis, who, in the terms of the high school, were in the "out crowd." Soon she meets the Plastics, the three crude, beautiful, popular girls, consisting of Regina, the unofficial leader, Gretchen, Regina's full-time follower, and Karen, "one of the dumbest people you will ever meet." They immediately let her into their group, but Cady, wanting to keep her first friends, is unsure. The two convince Cady to keep her relationship with the Plastics, only so that they can know their dark secrets. However, events turn for the worse when Cady falls for Regina's ex-boyfriend, Aaron Samuels. When Regina finds out, she seeks revenge of Cady by taking Aaron back. When Cady finds out, what began as a game to discover secrets turns into a plan to destroy Regina. Now, Cady, Janis, and Damian plot together to bring Regina's status down. However, as Cady spends more time with the Plastics, she, too, begins to become one.

DVD Production Details of: Mean Girls

Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams

Director: Mark S. Waters

Format: Color, Widescreen, Dolby

Aspect Ratio(s): 1.85:1

Audio Encoding: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Studio: Paramount Home Video
DVD Release Date: September 21, 2004

DVD Easter Eggs

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Cast of the movie: Mean Girls

Photo Gallery of the movie: Mean Girls

Click on one of the thumbnails to see the full size high quality photos, posters and wallpapers of Mean Girls
Wallpaper and photo Gallery of Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey, Rachel McAdams and Lacey Chabert (2004)
Wallpaper and photo Gallery of Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey, Rachel McAdams and Lacey Chabert (2004) 
Wallpaper and photo Gallery of Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey, Rachel McAdams and Lacey Chabert (2004) 
Wallpaper and photo Gallery of Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey, Rachel McAdams and Lacey Chabert (2004) 
Wallpaper and photo Gallery of Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey, Rachel McAdams and Lacey Chabert (2004) 
Wallpaper and photo Gallery of Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey, Rachel McAdams and Lacey Chabert (2004) 

Reviews of the movie: Mean Girls

The cutting wit of Tina Fey (the first female head writer for Saturday Night Live) brilliantly fuses pop culture and smart satire. Fey wrote Mean Girls, in which a formerly home-schooled girl named Cady (Lindsay Lohan, Freaky Friday) gets dropped into the sneaky, vicious world of the Plastics, three adolescent glamor-girls who dominate their public high school's social heirarchy. Cady first befriends a couple of art-punk outsiders who persuade her to infiltrate the Plastics and destroy them from within--but power corrupts, and Cady soon finds the glory of being a Plastic to be seductive. Mean Girls joins the ranks of Clueless, Bring It On, and Heathers, cunning movies that use the hormone-pressurized high school milieu to put the dark impulses of human nature--ambition, envy, lust, revenge--under a comic microscope. Fey manages to skewer everyone without forgetting the characters' hapless humanity; it's a dazzling and delightful balancing act.

Not just for girls, and the star is no mean actress.
Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but the fact that "Mean Girls" begins with the welcome return of the Paramount fanfare written for the previous incarnation of the logo, for its 75th anniversary (in 1987) can be seen as tying in with the movie's heroine, who's also entering the so-called "normal world" after having spent many of her formative years in Africa with her mum and the janitor from "Scrubs" (i.e. her dad), and who in this context is in the same age-bracket as that fanfare, even in real life (Lindsay Lohan was still 17 when the movie was released in the US). And thus, in some respects her character is a bit out-of-place in this milieu, what with her not knowing who Ashton Kutcher is - lucky girl - and thinking a brand new song is by the Spice Girls...

Anyway, Lindsay Lohan's first major movie away from the House of Mouse wipes away all the bad memories of "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen," gives hope to people wishing someone from "Saturday Night Live" not called Mike Myers can be associated with a decent movie, and strikes a happy balance between teen classics "Heathers" and "Clueless." It's not as good as either, but then again it doesn't have to be.

Tina Fey's script falls down a bit with its characters; the movie doesn't devote as much time to Cady (Lindsay Lohan)'s so-called "real" friends as to the Plastics that she's supposed to infiltrate, but on the other hand upping the conflict may have taken time away from Cady, who's the true focus of the movie. At the start she's sort of a blank slate, a newcomer who isn't really anybody yet, but as she goes through the movie she gradually gets herself defined, and it's fun and fascinating to watch Lindsay-as-Cady interact with the bad ladies and the supposedly-nicer-folks, though thankfully it's not a given that they're necessarily nicer - all the main characters here are plotting in one way or another, Cady's friends against the Plastics, the Plastics with each other...

The movie's unwillingness to be really nasty might not work with some people, but I didn't have a problem with it - it's sharp enough to be funny, but the movie's got heart with it (the Plastics aren't totally unlikeable; the teachers are just as flawed as the pupils; and Cady isn't entirely sympathetic). Admittedly it's not as funny as it could have been, and cynics will hate the ending, but Fey does a fine job with both acting and writing, and Lohan and Rachel McAdams as the head Plastic match each other perfectly (though make no mistake, this is Lindsay's show). Not another teen movie, it's recommended for people who'd like something a bit higher up than "American Pie VII" - and for fans of the gorgeous Lindsay, who will never be confused with Annette Funicello. As far as I know, no one ever said Annette could act.

An accurate and sharply funny portrayal of high school issues, "Mean Girls" never becomes too terribly dark or vicious, but it throws out some unexpected lines that had me laughing harder than any film in recent memory.

The film stars Lindsay Lohan as Cady, a teenager who has been homeschooled in Africa all her life, while her parents (Ana Gasteyer and "Scrubs" Neil Flynn) were researching in Africa. Although she's initially confused by the politics of high school, she gains two friends in by Janice (Lizzy Caplan), a goth chick, and a Damian (Daniel Franzese), a gay guy. When Cady is accepted by the plastics, a trio of popular girls lead by the glamourous Regina George (Rachel McAdams), her friends decide that it'll allow them to infiltrate the popular group, gain information and potentially take Regina and her friends, Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) and Karen (Amanda Seyfried), down from the inside.

Cady eventually falls for Aaron (Jonathan Bennett), Regina's ex-boyfriend. She broke up with him because he focused more on school - when Regina makes a play for Aaron in front of Cady, the tides turn and the three friends decide to dismantle all the elements that make Regina Regina, through tricks such as protein bars that make her figure not quite what it used to be.

Although it doesn't really reach any terribly new ground, underlying all of the sharp, witty jokes that pepper "Mean Girls" are some nice insights about the high school years, the pull of popularity and how it occasionally causes us to be what we're not, as well as how childhood friendships can fall apart during those high school years. The film takes place in North Shore High School, which is apparently based upon the very real Evanston Township High School in Evanston, IL. However, it often seems like a more accurate portrayal of Evanston's nearby rival, New Trier.

The performances are very good; McAdams plays a perfectly bitchy school queen (although an R-rating would have allowed her to go all the way with the character), Lohan delivers a good-natured performance that's less bland than some of her prior efforts and Caplan is a sharp performer who hits her lines with perfect timing. "Saturday Night Live"'s Tim Meadows and "Mean Girls" writer Tina Fey also turn in excellent supporting efforts as the school principal and the math teacher.

"Girls" falters a bit when it drops its claws (the picture is PG-13, and one can tell that it has been toned down to avoid an R), but the film largely proceeds full steam - it's a smart, funny teen comedy that goes over familiar ground in a fresh and smart manner.

The DVD

VIDEO: "Mean Girls" is presented by Paramount in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen by Paramount. The picture quality is fine, but there's a few minor concerns. Sharpness and detail are satisfactory; the picture remains crisp and bright, but definition isn't quite optimal - some shots look a tad soft, while fine details are not clearly visible.

The presentation doesn't run into many issues - a few minor traces of pixelation and edge enhancement are present, while the print looks in fine shape. Colors looked perfectly fine, with pleasing warmth and saturation.

SOUND: "Mean Girls" is presented by Paramount in Dolby Digital 5.1. The film's soundtrack does manage a few minor instances of placing sound effects in the surrounds, but the majority of the film is front-focused. Audio quality is perfectly fine, with clear dialogue and music. Overall, however, this is simply a "comedy" mix.

EXTRAS: The main supplement is a commentary from writer/actor Tina Fey, director Mark Waters and producer Lorne Michaels. The commentary is something of a disappointment, as the three should have come together to provide more of an entertaining track. Fey provides some occasional funny, sharp remarks, but is largely subdued. Waters offers some minor tidbits and information on the production, but spends considerable time praising those he worked with. Finally, Michaels just occasionally throws in some decent tidbits in reponse to the current topic. I was a little let down when one of them states early on, "I just realized we have to talk through the whole movie." Sure enough, for a commentary with three participants there are a few more gaps of silence and slow moments than I'd expect. The track isn't terrible, but simply less than expected.

Nine deleted scenes are included on the DVD, with optional commentary from director Mark Waters and writer/actor Tina Fey. These fairly short extended/deleted sequences occasionally get some big laughs. While they were likely cut for pacing and there's a few moments that were rightfully cut, these are worth a view.

Three featurettes - "The Politics of Girl World", "Plastic Fashion" and "Only the Strong Survive", run for a total of just under 46 minutes. "Only the Strong" is a general "making of", which offers character profiles, story overview, behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with cast and crew. "Politics of Girl World" offers an interview with author Rosalind Wiseman, who talks about how teen girls have to face images about what they should look like and, as a result, suffer insecurities and other issues. Finally, "Plastic Fashion" looks at the costume designs in the movie.

Finally, we get "Word Vomit", which offers about 5-1/2 minutes of bloopers, as well as the film's theatrical trailer, TV spots and previews for other Paramount titles.

Final Thoughts: "Mean Girls" is often clever and hilarious, with several great one-liners and performances. The film seems tamed down a tad for the PG-13 rating, but it's still sharp and effective more often than not. Paramount's DVD offers fine audio/video quality and a decent helping of supplements. Recommended.

Even so, the 18-year-old's Lindsay Lohan been pretty hard to ignore. Lindsay Lohan been dangling her jail-bait image on the covers of magazines, partying with Paris Hilton in the gossip rags, and joking about her endowment on that ever-hurting-for-material groanathon "Saturday Night Live."

So here's the surprise: Lohan's got real star presence in "Mean Girls." The movie itself may be a watered down update of the 1989 classic "Heathers," but Lindsay Lohan every bit as convincing as the high school outsider-turned-insider as Winona Ryder was back when the popular rich girls wore big hair and jackets with shoulder pads.

The new take on high school that "Mean Girls" comes up with is that it isn't only the popular alpha girls who are mean these days - all girls are equally petty and eager to spread rumors when given the chance.

The new take on high school that "Mean Girls" comes up with is that it isn't only the popular alpha girls who are mean these days - all girls are equally petty and eager to spread rumors when given the chance.

Still, the rich, popular ones have crafted it into an art form. They're able to pick each other apart like surgeons wielding stiletto heels and the razor's edge of their American Express platinum cards instead of scalpels.

Here, they're played by yes-girl Gretchen (played by Lacey Chabert), dumb as a sack full of hair Karen (played by Amanda Seyfried), and their evil blonde queen bee Regina (played by "The Notebook's" Rachel McAdams). Lindsay Lohan Cady is thrown into this lion's den like a sacrifice. In fact, she starts off as the popular girls' pal after thinking it would be a funny joke to spy on them from the inside and report on their stupidity back to her real friends - a couple of outcasts who took her in on the first day of school.

Of course, the plan backfires, badly, and Cady has to learn some "very special" lessons about the true meaning of friendship and sisterhood before 90 minutes are up. But don't let that, or the rest of our culture's current Lohan overkill, keep you from seeing what the girl can actually do.

 'Mean Girls' is a funny, poignant and, apparently, unreasonably accurate portrait of life during the high school years. Based on the non-fiction book, Tina Fey wrote an incisive, witty and frequently poignant film that illustrates the points of the book, 'Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence,' by centering the story around Cady [Lindsay Lohan], a fifteen-year old who enters high school for the first time, after being home-schooled in Africa.

'Mean Girls' is reminiscent of the classic dark comedy, 'Heathers,' but its observations of high school life are at once dialed back, and more accurate. 'Heathers' worked because it was so exaggerated; 'Mean Girls' works because there is less exaggeration, and more attention to detail. From the opening moments when Cady's parents fuss over her as she prepares to go to school for the first time, is a masterpiece of misdirection - but is also an accurate observation of the way parents wonder when their baby ventures out into the world for the first time.

Cady's experiences at school are fresh and sharply detailed, from making her first friends [a pair of art geeks named Damien [Daniel Franzese] and Janis Ian [Lizzy Caplan], who introduce her to the school's cliques - the JV jocks, Asian nerds, and so forth - via a cleverly drawn map of who sits where in the lunch room. The worst of the cliques is The Plastics, the queen bees of the school - they're the four most popular girls - headed up by the haughty Regina [Rachel MacAdams]. As Damien puts it, if the school was 'US Weekly,' they'd be on the cover every week. When Damien and Janis convince Cady to join The Plastics so that they can find out all the dirt on them, things go horribly, bizarrely awry.

One of the more interesting devices of the movie is the way that Cady applies her knowledge of the wilds of Africa to the situations into which she falls. One of the best scenes in the movie comes when the school's girls erupt into a full-fledged brawl in the hall and Cady blinks, figuring that the scene is her imagination - and then becomes mortified when she realizes it's actually happening.

There are more sharp moments, like the Phys Ed teacher who has no clue about how to teach health; the exploits of the school's mathletes; getting grounded, and so on. Each is handled in the same precise manner as the opening display of parental fussing - sharply, and only slightly exaggerated [except maybe for the health teacher, who is gloriously over-the-top]. The movie's final act may be more conciliatory than its darker predecessor, 'Heathers,' but then, 'Mean Girls' is a much lighter and slightly more accurate depiction of high school, so it works well.

The cast is uniformly excellent from Lohan and MacAdams to Tina Fey as math teacher, Ms Norbury and, collectively, Lacey Chabert, Amanda Seyfried as Gretchen and Karen - the other Plastics, to Ana Gastmeyer and Neil Flynn as Cady's parents. Perhaps the best performance, outside of the leads, comes from Amy Poehler, as Regina's wants-to-be-cool mom - a bundle of insecurities just itching to be one of the girls.

The special features are pretty good, too: audio commentary by writer/co-star Tina Fey and director Mark Waters; three featurettes ['Only the Strong Survive,' 'The Politics of Girl World,' and 'Plastic Fashion']; 'Word Vomit' [blooper reel]; 'So Fetch' [deleted scenes with optional commentary by Waters and Fey]; three interstitials [you'll know them when you see them]; and the theatrical trailer. You also have the option of three different audio tracks [two in English, one in French], and either English or Spanish sub-titles.

The commentary track is delightful: besides giving us the lowdown on how the film was put together, we also get insights into the casting process, examples of situations and dialogue that were taken directly from 'Queen Bees.', and anecdotes from the shoot. The featurettes are all solid efforts, and give us a look at the rules by which Girl World functions; the need for strength to endure high school in all its awfulness; and how the movie's fashion look was achieved.

'Word Vomit' is one of the best blooper reels I've seen - most of the outtakes are actually funny. 'So Fetch' features a number of deleted scenes that could easily have survived the cutting room floor - and a few that must have been easy cuts. The best one features Ms Fey, after the big mathlete competition - it's so funny that it's a shame it didn't make the final cut, but as Fey and Waters point out, it would have detracted from the Cady arc.

'Mean Girls' establishes both Lindsay Lohan and Rachel MacAdams as rising stars, entertains royally, and manages to have a bit of a message. Not bad for a grey [not quite dark] comedy. In a year when girls have been given so many bad movies, it's refreshing to find one that has the intelligence and wit of 'Mean Girls' - and it's smart and wise enough to hook guys and parents, too.

Mean Girls might seem like a comic indictment of high school cliques and the rampant backstabbing within them, but it's really about the dangers of home schooling—at least that's how it struck me. Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) has spent the bulk of her life in the African jungle, frolicking with animals with her zoologist parents (Ana Gasteyer and Neil Flynn). But when her family relocates to preppy Evanston, Illinois and Cady enrolls in public school, she finds lions and tigers are pussycats compared to the stuck-up rhymes-with-witches who rule North Shore High. Cady may be smart, but home schooling has made her a social retard—she doesn't understand teen lingo, knows nothing of pop culture, and is clueless about school hierarchy, etiquette, and peer interaction. As a result, she's easy prey for the salivating carnivores that can't wait to devour her as she tiptoes through the cafeteria, hoping to find the right niche.

Cady wisely avoids the delinquents and druggies, but can't resist the lure of The Plastics, a trio of hot but vapid babes who are simultaneously revered and reviled by the North Shore student body. Led by the ruthless Regina George (Rachel McAdams), The Plastics live by a set of rigid codes ("You can't wear a tank top two days in a row, and you can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week"), and seduce the naïve, starstruck Cady with their power and status. In the eyes of "teen royalty," however, Cady is nothing more than an empty canvas, and The Plastics can't wait to paint her in their artificial likeness. And, boy, do they churn out a masterpiece.

Amazingly, Cady's more down-to-earth, but equally weird friends—the rebellious Janis (Lizzy Caplan), who just happens to be Regina's former best friend yet now embraces the dark side, and Damian (Daniel Franzese), who, Janis quips, is "almost too gay to function"—encourage Cady to infiltrate the Plastic ranks so she can report on the group's evil deeds and spur its destruction. All goes according to plan initially, but when Regina learns Cady has a crush on her hunky ex, Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett), the two rivals go to war, and Cady's insatiable thirst for victory and revenge transforms her into the most plastic mean girl of all.

Conceived by Tina Fey, the smart and sassy head writer and Weekend Update anchor of Saturday Night Live, Mean Girls possesses more flair and bite than most high school comedies. Sure, Fey peppers her screenplay with some raunchy and brainless humor to appease the genre's target audience, but perceptive insights and identifiable dilemmas eclipse the idiocy. What makes Mean Girls different (and more substantive) than its cookie-cutter cousins is how it concentrates on relationships instead of situations. The film shows us that in high school, like many aspects of society, who you know is more important than what you know, and the alliances we form often dictate who and what we become. Cady learns the hard way that once she sets the wheels in motion by joining The Plastics, it's hard to apply the brakes.

Fey (who also appears in the film as a nurturing math teacher) and director Mark Waters (Freaky Friday) wisely present Mean Girls through Cady's virgin eyes, so we can experience the strange universe of high school and all the asinine regulations of "girl world" by her side. Consequently, we're more willing to forgive her mistakes and misjudgment, and understand the forces and pressures that provoke her bad choices. Who among us hasn't selfishly juggled and manipulated friends, submerged our intelligence (or beefed up our accomplishments) so we could snag a mate, or waged war against someone like Regina over a petty betrayal? Hey, it's high school, where, despite delusions to the contrary, immaturity reigns supreme, and everyone wades through the minefield of adolescence the best they can.

Lindsay Lohan is hands down the finest actress and most magnetic personality of the teen beauties currently flooding Hollywood. Fresh-faced, natural, and able to play both feisty and vulnerable, she draws us into the film and keeps us rooting for her throughout her bumpy odyssey. Cady is not a character we always like, but Lohan's honest performance makes her motivations and actions relatable. As the notorious Plastics, Lacey Chabert, Amanda Seyfried, and McAdams almost steal the show with hilariously vivid portrayals that push the envelope but maintain essential kernels of truth, while several current and past Saturday Night Live performers—Tim Meadows, Gasteyer, and Amy Poehler (in an inspired turn as Rachel's silicone-infused mom)—also add to the fun.

Fey's script, however, outshines them all. Funny, perceptive, wise, deliciously nasty, and ultimately uplifting (but never sappy and saccharine), it satirizes teen foibles as it addresses serious interpersonal and innately feminine issues in an intelligent, entertaining manner. That's a fancy way of saying the screenplay works on many levels while staying true to its comic roots. And how many teen comedies can make that claim—in any language?
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