village voice > film > Cruel intentions: Loser teens burst alpha girls' Plastic bubble by Jessica Winter

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Film

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Cruel intentions: Loser teens burst alpha girls' Plastic bubble

by Jessica Winter

April 20th, 2004 12:00 AM

Santa claws: Mean Girls
photo: Michael Gibson/Paramount Pictures

Mean Girls
Directed by Mark Waters
Paramount, opens April 30

Kabluey
Tracking Shots by Jim Ridley

Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
by McCann, Ruth

Diminished Capacity
Tracking Shots by Nick Pinkerton

Holding Trevor
Tracking Shots by Julia Wallace

We Are Together
Tracking Shots by Ella Taylor

Trash Talking With Harvey Weinstein
by Tony Ortega

Coming and Then Licking It Up. Is This a Gay Thing?
Savage Love by Dan Savage

At Home With Competitive Swallowers Crazy Legs and Eater X
by Andy Kropa

Gene Simmons and the Whores He Admires
La Dolce Musto by Michael Musto

Columbia's Knotty Noose Problem
by Graham Rayman

The 'W.' Stands for 'War Criminal' (17)
Nat Hentoff

Scientology's Crushing Defeat (14)
Tony Ortega

Runnin' Scared: From Brooklyn, a Rap Campaign Against Tight Clothes (9)
Runnin' Scared: Arcynta Ali Childs

Runnin' Scared: The City Pitted Kids Against Artists in the East Village (6)
Runnin' Scared: Chloé A. Hilliard

Savage Love: My Boyfriend Almost Fathered a Lesbian Couple's Baby?!? (5)
Savage Love: Dan Savage

Daughter of zoologists, bemusedly angelic Cady (Lindsay Lohan) goes from home tutoring in "the African bush" to high school in suburban Chicago, where she immediately falls in with the scowly artiste and the witty, overweight gay guy, who set Cady on an undercover mission to infiltrate the Plastics, a consortium of high priestesses led by terrifying alpha girl Regina (Rachel McAdams); but to paraphrase a Quasi song, if you play a Plastic long enough, it's just what you become. Director Waters and screenwriter Tina Fey (also cast as the voice-of-reason math teacher) aim less for the usual high-gloss caricature than acutely hilarious sociology, nailing the servile malice of 15-year-old girls, the voodoo art of sparkly-eyed mindfuck (Regina tells Cady she's pretty, Cady bashfully thanks her, Regina fires back, "So you think you're pretty?"), and the lunch-table caste system: Emeritus losers will wince with recognition when Cady takes her meal in a bathroom stall rather than face the infernal maw also known as the school cafeteria.

More by Jessica Winter

FEVA Dream
The East Village's Howl festival collapses amid mudslinging, debt, and broken promises

Secrets and Guys
Spring awakenings lead to immature flashbacks

Minor Threat
Does 'The Daily Show' really make college students apathetic?

Blade Runner
Frothy fight scenes and anti-military bitch slaps

Built to Spill
Chapter two in the solitary woman trilogy