Sagebrush High School Class of 1987 graduates Romy White (Mira Sorvino) and Michele Weinberger (Lisa Kudrow) share a dream. Along with everyone else who was ever snubbed by the popular clique in school, they want to get even.
So the duo determine to bury their true underachieving selves and attend their 10-year reunion in Tucson as brilliant businesswomen who've made a fortune in L.A. After all, says Romy, ``What's the point of going if we're not going to impress people?''
And so begins ``Romy and Michele's High School Reunion,'' which could just as easily have been called ``Ditzy and Ditzier.'' Friends since their teens, when Romy was chubby and Michele was stuck in a squeaky neck brace, the two have spent the past decade clubhopping, working run-of-the-mill jobs and wearing out their video of ``Pretty Woman.''
Living large has never been in their picture, but ``we never had a really good reason like a reunion to motivate us,'' says Romy.
Now, Romy has decided to go on a fat-free diet: ``nothing but Gummi Bears, jelly beans and candy corn.'' Michele has made stylish power-suits on her sewing machine. A Jaguar convertible has been borrowed for transportation.
Getting a hot boyfriend to escort them isn't so simple, however. Romy applies to MTV's ``Singled Out,'' only to be rebuffed by a production assistant, who sneers, ``Our cut-off age is 25. Try VH1.'' Lines like that give ``Romy and Michele'' the kind of hip cache that made ``Clueless'' all the rage two years ago.
Consumed by the grand delusion that they're much cooler than they actually are, Romy and Michele could easily have been turned into self-indulgent culture vultures, but writer Robin Schiff manages to keep them delightfully quirky.
After such a portentous build-up, however, the reunion itself seems a little flat. Most of what you might expect to happen happens: the one-time dreamboat is now an alcoholic, the class nerd has struck it rich, etc. Even with only 91 minutes to fill, Schiff runs out of plot and has to throw in an overextended fantasy sequence to keep things going.
As it is, the movie's best moments are often incidental, as when Michele goes job-hunting in Beverly Hills or Romy evades a pick-up artist by hobbling away, telling him ``Excuse me, I cut my foot earlier and my shoe is filling up with blood.''
Best of all is a tense argument between the women about who's the cutest one, or rather who's ``the Mary'' and who's ``the Rhoda.''
Much of the comedy's success stems from Sorvino, who proves her Oscar for ``Mighty Aphrodite'' was not a one-shot triumph. Her delivery and timing are absolutely impeccable, and Sorvino seems to empathize with Romy's compulsion to dazzle. ``If anybody needs to make a call, I've got a phone,'' Romy announces to sarcastic ``A-group'' witches she's trying to impress, completely unaware that the device lost its ``wow'' factor years ago.
Kudrow makes the best of Michele, but the character is not far removed from her TV role as Phoebe on ``Friends,'' and Schiff shortchanges Michele in the wisecrack department.
The most acidic quips go to the priceless Janeane Garofalo, as the endlessly crabby Heather Mooney, who holds a grudge against Sagebrush High in general and herself in particular. As she proved in ``Reality Bites'' and ``The Truth About Cats and Dogs,'' nobody does self-loathing better than Garofalo, and her few scenes spark the picture.
Like the concurrent reunion-themed ``Grosse Pointe Blank,'' ``Romy and Michele'' features a marvelous soundtrack of '80s anthems, from the Vapors' ``Turning Japanese'' and the Pretenders ``Don't Get Me Wrong'' to Kenny Loggins' ``Footloose,'' which Romy and Michele struggle in vain to sing along with.
Even when the comedy runs out of steam, it's hard to knock any movie that dares to include not one, but two totally awsome hits by Bananarama, the Romy and Michele of pop.
James Sanford
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