Not your mother’s Mean Girls. If that marketing line hasn’t murdered you, this week’s lone cinema debut in South Africa is a musical remake of the high school comedy classic, which is now (brace for it!) twenty years old .
Based on the Broadway version of the story, this new Mean Girls is written once more by Tina Fey, who also returns as teacher Ms. Norbury. Mean Girls has never centred on adults, though. It’s all about teen rivalries, as new student Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) is initially welcomed by the school’s popular ruling elite, known as “The Plastics,” headed by conniving Regina George (Reneé Rapp) and her minions Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika). However, when Cady falls for Regina’s ex-boyfriend, she makes an enemy of the school’s queen bee, and must join forces with fellow outcasts Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey) to come out on top. One notable difference between the original film and this version is that Mean Girls 2024 takes place during the social media age.