If you’ve been to the movies in the past few months, you would’ve likely seen the trailer for the new Mean Girls remake during the pre-show, and, surprise…it’s a musical! The new film is based on the 2017 Broadway musical, which was inspired by the 2004 film. A bit of theatrical inception, if you will.
In case you haven’t seen it, Mean Girls (2004) is about a girl named Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan), who moves from Africa to the U.S. and begins a friendship with the Plastics — the ultimate queen bees at her new high school. Since the 2024 film’s release, the internet has had mixed reviews, from total obsession with a new take on the cult classic to total disdain from fans of the Broadway musical.
Videos on TikTok and reviews on the film review website Letterboxd demonstrate this polarization in some of the most comedic ways possible, like a review on Letterboxd by user @ezziefilm writing, “Women want Reneé Rapp, not boyfriends,” referring to the actress playing the newest version of Regina George.
More critical or negative reviews came from fans of the Broadway musical, who were left disappointed or just downright confused by the choices made for the film. TikTok user @sarassuitcase made a video comparing the song “Revenge Party” from the Broadway recording against the film version. Commenters discuss their frustrations with the new version, citing lack of annunciation — typical in theatrical vocal performances — to how it sounds too “pop” and “flat” with the new instrumentation.
I saw the film over the weekend, and I’m still thinking of what to feel about it. As a fan of both the original film and the original musical, I understand the intent behind making this new adaptation, but I also think there were some missteps when making and promoting the movie.
The movie was not marketed as a musical, except for one clip of Rapp singing a line from the song “Meet The Plastics.” The trailer also included instrumentals of other songs briefly sprinkled in. Other than that, the film’s marketing did not go out of its way to show that this new adaptation would be a movie musical. As a seasoned theatre kid, I can understand the frustration of fans of the original musical and the confusion of people who aren’t fans of musicals.
Mean Girls (2024), in my opinion, is a test of what happens when you try to make musicals cool and accessible for an audience outside of “theatre kids.” It’s not an easy task by any means to try and get an audience to be comfortable with the cast singing mid-scene instead of just talking, which can be hard to follow or get annoying.
However, this movie was not all negative. I feel like this new adaptation did a lot of things right!
By casting Reneé Rapp, who also played Regina George on Broadway when the pandemic hit, the film is attracting her young online audience to the movies, which has been a struggling industry since 2020.
The film has also brought a new stream of listeners to the Mean Girls Broadway cast recording, with Playbill reporting that streaming on the album has gone up 200% since the film was released and its wave of online reviews. With songs like “Sexy” and “Stupid with Love” seeing a 240% and 230% increase in streams, respectively, maybe this will kickstart a new era of theatre kids or even people who will give musicals a listen for the first time.
In my opinion, I think the movie itself was okay! As I mentioned earlier, I’m a fan of the Broadway musical and the original film, and I feel like this new adaptation did a good job at taking quite dated source material and making it new for a generation that wasn’t even alive to experience it. The film was well cast and shot, and ignoring my problems with the musical aspects of it, I think it’s worth a watch!
Mean Girls (2024) has been a polarizing movie, to say the least, and the movie’s criticism is completely valid. You can never make people truly happy, but with the increase in popularity for the small fan base this new adaptation does have, maybe musical theatre and movie musicals will see a new resurgence in popularity. I guess we will have to wait and see!