Nothing mean to say about Mean Girls

They dis you behind your back, trick you into trash-talking a friend on three-way call and convince your crush that you're a stalker, and they're supposed to be your friends. Every high school has them, the "Popular Girls" - girls everyone wants to be, or at least dreams of befriending. But this time, newcomer Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan), has decided to break the barrier between the popular girls and everyone else.

Mean Girls is the story of Cady's struggle to fit in during her junior year of high school. Cady was an innocent and naive teenage girl who lived in Africa and was home-schooled until her family relocated to Illinois, where she entered public school for the first time. On Cady's second day of school, she befriends two classic high-school nerds, utterly flamboyant Damian and Gothic artist Janis. The three teens plan for Cady to go undercover and become friends with the "Plastics," the most popular girls at school, with hopes of sabotaging their popularity.

The Plastics, made up of ringleader Regina (Rachel McAdams), clueless Karen (Amanda Seyfried) and gossip queen Gretchen (Lacey Chabert), accept Cady as a charity case, taking her under their wing and turning her into one of them - a stuck-up and self-centered priss. They teach her the ways of their clique by telling Cady what clothes she can and can't wear and by showing her the "burn book," a furry pink journal which contains mean comments about everyone in their grade.

Cady's experience as one of the Plastics consists of throwing out-of-control parties, engaging in secret hook-ups and lying. Soon Cady develops a crush on Aaron (Jonathan Bennett), a senior in her calculus class, only to find out that Aaron is Regina's ex-boyfriend. After discovering Cady has fallen for Aaron, Regina decides she wants her boy toy back.

As Cady rapidly becomes more caught-up in her new social scene, she starts neglecting Damian and Janis. Though Cady claims she's only playing the part of a mean girl to convince the Plastics she's one of them, Damian and Janis wonder if Cady is really enjoying being a reigning teen queen.

Lindsay Lohan's ability to portray a confused teen unfamiliar with the struggles in a girl's high-school world is an important factor in the success of Mean Girls.

Overall, the teenage actors realistically portray the hardships of social competition that come with being a teen. Rachel McAdams does an excellent job playing the stuck-up, snotty queen that every girl secretly envies, while Jonathan Bennett falls into the role of the hottie "it" boy who is a crucial part of every successful movie targeted toward teen girls.

The Mean Girls's screen play is written by Saturday Night Live's Tina Fey and is based on DC author Rosalind Wiseman's Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence. Fey's adaptation of this nonfiction book is hilarious, as you laugh at the Plastics and thank God your own high school isn't controlled by cliques to such an extreme. Fey, who also plays the small part of Cady's calculus teacher, helps to create Mean Girls in all of its comedic glory.

Lohan's ability to realistically portray the emotional journey of an innocent 16-year-old's transition into the rough teenage world, along with an intriguing plot that many teens can relate to, is what makes Mean Girls a success.

Mean Girls is rated PG-13 for crude language, sexual humor, rioting high-school students and underage drinking.