It's back to school with 'Mean Girls,' but director will transfer to guy films

By Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times movie critic

	MICHAEL GIBSON / PARAMOUNT PICTURES Left to right, Lindsay Lohan as Cady, Amanda Seyfried as Karen, Rachel McAdams as Regina and Lacey Chabert as Gretchen in director Mark Waters' "Mean Girls."
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Mark Waters has a knack for girl movies. His "Freaky Friday," with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, was one of 2003's sunniest pleasures, and his new movie, "Mean Girls" starring Lohan and written by Tina Fey, looks likely to re-invigorate the high-school movie genre. But he wouldn't mind a little variety.

"I'd like to work with guys, just for the hair and makeup issues, if nothing else. It'd be very relaxing," said the director, in Seattle last week for a chatty and enthusiastic interview before "Mean Girls" opens nationwide Friday. "It's a good time for me to do 'Tigerland,' with a bunch of guys with shaved heads."

Waters, who made his feature directing debut with "The House of Yes" in 1997, was actually planning on switching genres after "Freaky Friday." But "Mean Girls," the story of a previously homeschooled teen named Cady (Lohan) who gets a quick education in high-school-girl cliques, proved irresistible. Cady, a wholesome girl, finds herself drawn into the world of the Plastics — the school's coolest, meanest, most fashionable girls, who wear pink on Wednesdays and choreograph social interactions with the ruthless precision of sharpshooters.

The director, who initially described the film (quite accurately) as " 'Clueless' meets 'Heathers,' " said that he and Fey were responding to a sea change in teen movies over the last generation. Both had fond memories of John Hughes' teen movies ("Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club"). In the current landscape, Waters said, "there's nothing like that — it's all dipped in bubblegum, lots of music cues and costume changes, signifying nothing. So we thought, OK, let's hearken back to the John Hughes movies we love, but take this wicked subversive take on it, with the mean girls."

Fey (who also plays math teacher Ms. Norbury in the film) based her screenplay on a work of nonfiction: Rosalind Wiseman's book "Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence." The book explores the sophisticated social hierarchies set up by teenage girls, with carefully delineated positions such as The Queen Bee, The Sidekick, The Target, The Torn Bystander and the Floater.

Coincidentally, Waters had read the book during his preparation for "Freaky Friday," and was fascinated by its anthropological view of female teenage life. "People will ask me, 'Were you aware of mean girls when you were growing up?' But you're just so oblivious as a boy," he said. "Girls are operating on this level of knowing what their status is, and these subtle things like who's sitting where, and guys are like, 'Huh?' We're just happy that a girl will talk to us."

During post-production for that film, he managed to get an early draft of the "Mean Girls" script. "I became obsessed with getting on the project," remembered Waters. "It was funny because I was being sent a lot of scripts at this point, and was keenly interested in doing something with adults — I wanted to do a movie with Tom Hanks! But Tina's script was the funniest thing I'd read since 'Heathers.' "

"Heathers," the 1989 dark comedy about high-school life, is something of a touchstone for Waters, and for good reason: His older brother, Daniel Waters, wrote it. That film was inspired by their younger sister's experience in high school. "She was definitely a Heather, but she was a Heather with a heart," said Waters. "She got into a fight with her best friend and was very nervous about where she was going to sit in the lunchroom. In 'Mean Girls,' that became a very big thing. Your spot in the lunchroom ... your identity is kind of associated with that."

After the double whammy of "Freaky Friday" and "Mean Girls" (which began preproduction a day after "Freaky Friday's" premiere), Waters will next tackle his first collaboration with his screenwriter brother. They're adapting the Luke Rhinehart novel "The Dice Man," about a "middle-class guy who's having a midlife crisis and decides to have all of his decisions made by a roll of the dice." Work has just begun on the dark comedy, which Daniel will write and Mark will direct. "I think it's time," he said, "to go to the big kids' table."

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com

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