ROMY AND MICHELE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
So how did your tenth high school reunion go? More apropos, how would you like it to have gone?
This conundrum faces normally happy-go-lucky Romy and Michele in ROMY AND MICHELE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION. They have been inseparable buddies forever so they must face this challenge in their life together. Romy's instant solution is: Lose some weight off their already slender frames, "bag a couple of boyfriends," and get a job. Romy says this will be easy, but Michele retorts that if it is so easy, why hadn't they already done it.
Robin Schiff's script keeps the show moving with some nice one-liners. One of the best has Romy reminiscing about her life's battle against the bathroom scales. "I was so lucky getting mono," she says looking at her thinnest high school picture. "That was like the best diet ever."
The casting for the film is so perfect that one begins to suspect that the leads were chosen and then the script was developed. Mira Sorvino, who won the Academy Award for her role in MIGHTY APHRODITE, plays Romy, the brighter of the two, if that is possible. Lisa Kudrow, from the TV series "Friends" and "Mad About You," plays the slightly dumber Michele.
Roommates Romy and Michele in this good spirited parody are your canonical ditzy blondes. The show's tag line "the blonde leading the blonde" uses blonde as a metaphor for blind.
Romy and Michele use their high school yearbook to discuss the delineation of the caste system at their high school. (Editor David Finfer dissolves the stills in the annual to live action flashbacks which gives immediacy to the past coming to life.)
At Sagebrush High, the hierarchy consisted of the A group (cheerleaders), the B group (drama club) and the C group (nerds). Romy and Michele were none of the above. Ridiculed as "the weirdoes," they were constant targets for abuse. Even though they were quite attractive, they had so much fun being together that they did not care about the others. That they make their own outlandish clothes helped keep the wall around them. Mona May's costumes contribute to the show's breezy fun. The colorful and revealing dresses of lime green, lavender, and other pastels include heavy use of plastic fruit. She even has the people at the reunion carry color coordinated frozen daiquiris. Romy and Michele's hairdos have the bulk that birds need to build nests.
Complementing Romy and Michele's lightness, is Janeane Garofalo as the dark, pudgy Heather Mooney. Heather, who invented a new cigarette paper for cigarettes with "twice the taste in half the time for the gal on the go," has the success and the money that they would like. Heather was even more of an outsider than they were in high school. Garofalo's one dimensional role is only a side show. This is a two person film with the other characters there merely for the two leads to bounce their lines off of. The genuine chemistry between Sorvino and Kudrow makes for a sweet and sometimes touching comedy.
Director David Mirkin's presentation is uneven. Although the lines are periodically funny, the picture as a whole just does not have the comedic power of GROSS POINTE BLANK, which is another 10th high school reunion comedy currently playing. Still, Sorvino and Kudrow have so much fun doing their parts, their enjoyment spreads to the audience.
ROMY AND MICHELE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION runs a fast 1:33. It is rated R for sexual humor and a little profanity. The film would be fine for kids 10 or 11 and over. I recommend this lighthearted and lightweight comedy and give it ** 1/2.
**** = A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = Totally and painfully unbearable picture.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: April 22, 1997
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews