ROMY AND MICHELE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1997 Scott Renshaw
(Touchstone) Starring: Mira Sorvino, Lisa Kudrow, Janeane Garofolo, Alan Cumming, Julia Campbell. Screenplay: Robin Schiff. Producer: Laurence Mark. Director: David Mirkin. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, adult themes) Running Time: 93 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
ROMY AND MICHELE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION isn't just a film _about_ two eras; it's a film trapped _between_ two eras. First-time feature film director David Mirkin is a veteran executive producer of TV's "The Simpsons," and there are times when ROMY AND MICHELE aims for a similar vein of absurdism and satire. At other times, it is nearly as formulaic and synthetic as the 1980s youth comedies spawned by the films of John Hughes. ROMY AND MICHELE is a film with plenty of enjoyable bits and pieces, but it may actually hit its '80s nostalgia target a bit too well. It's a light-hearted lark until it turns into THE BREAKFAST CLUB'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION.
Our heroines are Romy White (Mira Sorvino) and Michele Weinberger (Lisa Kudrow), two best friends living together in Los Angeles. They are happy with their lives of club-hopping and watching PRETTY WOMAN together, despite the fact that neither one of them has a significant other and only Romy has a job -- as a cashier. As their ten year reunion for Tuscon's Sagebrush High School approaches, however, Romy and Michele begin to worry that these vital statistics might make them look like...well, losers. Determined to attend the reunion and impress the "A" group who scorned them in high school, Romy and Michele decide to change their images and tell a success story which stretches the truth _just_ a bit. Unfortunately, one classmate knows their real story: Heather Mooney (Janeane Garofolo), embittered one-time social nobody turned wealthy inventor of the fast-burning cigarette.
For a while, it seems that ROMY AND MICHELE is going for a CLUELESS sort of ditzy-hip vibe, with Sorvino and Kudrow sporting garish fashions by CLUELESS designer Mona May. May's costumes may by the Most Valuable Player in ROMY AND MICHELE, providing reliable laughs every time we see the stars in a new pair of day-glo platform shoes or a new sausage-casing dress. Sorvino and Kudrow give satisfying performances, with Kudrow straying little from her Phoebe characterization from "Friends," but screenwriter Robin Schiff doesn't give them many good lines to work with. With few exceptions, the big laughs Sorvino and Kudrow draw are ones they earn through sheer exuberance; even the fifth or sixth time Michele responds to one of Romy's observations with a gasp of "Me too!" is funny because Kudrow sells each one like the first time it has ever occurred to her that she and Romy have a lot in common.
The sluggish stretches in ROMY AND MICHELE come when Schiff and Mirkin take long breaks either for exposition flashbacks or fantasy sequences which aren't nearly as amusing as the scenes between the adult Romy and Michele. Worse yet, the exposition serves primarily to set up the morals to the story, and ROMY AND MICHELE spends far too much time serving up more than the Recommended Daily Allowance of reminders to "be yourself." The comedy becomes terribly predictable at this point, with the last fifteen minutes of ROMY AND MICHELE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION turning into a succession of cues for us cheer the revenge of the nerds and silly moments of petty vengeance. In a way, the later stages of the film serve mostly as a depressing reminder of the main reasons people go to high school reunions: those who were unpopular but became successful get a chance for a symbolic smack in the face to those who tormented them; those who were popular get a chance to re-live memories of faded glory which may have eluded them ever since.
ROMY AND MICHELE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION provides some solid belly laughs, but its overly-sincere observations about the high school social order rapidly become frustrating. With its soundtrack full of mid 80s early MTV "classics," ROMY AND MICHELE is clearly aimed at those who are ready to do some reminiscing about their high school years, but instead of laughing at the absurdity of it all, Mirkin and Schiff provide what they must think is a necessary catharsis. Romy and Michele are entertaining characters, but they're in the wrong movie; their obliviousness is more appealing than their self-awareness. While Janeane Garofolo provides a necessary dose of ironic distance, Sorvino and Kudrow are obliged to immerse themselves in a very retro sort of crowd-pleaser. Individual moments are satisfying in ROMY AND MICHELE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION, but it doesn't trust its comic creations to carry the film without Important Messages. With its reminders of how tough we _all_ had it, regardless of our place on the teenage social ladder, all it really needs is the strident refrain of Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me" to make the cinematic flashback complete.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 simple minds: 5.
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