Mean Girls

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It's superficially simple to confuse Mean Girls with any number of movies aimed at the female teen market (such as The Lizzie McGuire Movie, or Lindsay Lohan's own venture, Confessions Of A Teenage Drama Queen). However Mark S Waters' comedy-drama picks apart its rivals and the appalling values they uphold.

Adapted by Tina Fey from Rosalind Wiseman's guide to teen living 'Queen Bees And Wannabes', Mean Girls takes a sledgehammer to everything from cliques to status anxiety. Our companion on this journey through the depressing world of the American teen is Cady (Lindsay Lohan), who discovers that her upbringing in the wilds of Africa is far from adequate preparation for surviving the rigours of the urban academic jungle. That said, she doesn't help herself by ditching the mates she makes on the first day to hang out with The Plastics, a clique run by the formidable Regina (Rachel McAdams).

What follows is a tale packed with the type of betrayal and double-cross you'd usually only find in the most incident-packed thriller. And since so many of the characters are winningly played, we're obliged to give a damn about the reversals that affect these young souls and their fragile relationships. With Lohan building on her good work in Freaky Friday, McAdams, Lacey Chabert and Amanda Seyfried make for the best bitch posse from hell since the Heathers. There are also nice supporting turns from Saturday Night Live regulars Fey, Amy Poehler and Tim Meadows.

Of course, since Mean Girls is a Saturday Night Live production, the drama is served up with tons of gags, which are mainly very funny. From tragic shopping addictions to basic teen stupidity, Waters and Fey mine original humour from these and other familiar topics. And while they have plenty of satirical fun, writer and director never let the social comment get in the way of a good knob gag.