ROMY AND MICHELE'S HIGH SCHOOL REUNION
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1997 Ben Hoffman
It has been quite a while since we have been treated to a couple of young women as ditzY as Romy (Mira Sorvino) and her even flakier friend, Michele (Lisa Kudrow). Based on Robin Schiff's play, LADY'S ROOM, which also starred Kudrow as Michele, and adapted by Schiff for the screen, the film is a delightful romp.
Romy and Michele have been living together since they graduated from Tucson's Sagebrush High School ten years ago. Their lot has not improved any since those school days while time has flown by. Romy is a clerk at a car dealership while Michele is unemployed at the moment. Not very exciting. When they learn about their school's ten year reunion which they want to attend, they realize they will present the same "nothing" appearance they did when they went to high school. Everyone else is probably a TV anchorwoman or something equally glamorous. If the 2 young women are to attend the reunion and not look as stupid as ever, they must invent something about themselves that is exciting. How about being the inventor of Post-It? That ought to get the snooty girls at the reunion to now look up to them.
And so they are off to the reunion. Romy hopes to meet the guy she was in love with when they were in high school but who never gave her a tumble. Michele has even less ambition. She just wants to have fun.
Everything is going well at the reunion for them when each announces (to separate people) that she is very rich, having invented Post-It. All the other women are duly impressed until their story is blown by the very weird Heather, (Janeane Garofalo).
What the story behind the story is that Romy and Michele say whatever comes to mind, going from hesd to mouth without stopping to think; and their friendship is everything because they do enjoy each other's company. There is not enough of that in real life.
Mention should be made of the four-letter language (so leave the little ones at home) as well as advice delivered by Heather to a cowboy that includes something about "a sheep or your sister." Very funny. This may be a good time to mention that Kudrow should now be looking for other types of roles lest she be typecast as strictly ditzy.
Others in the cast include the snooty Christie (the beautiful Julia Campbell), boyfriends played by Alan Cumming, Vincent Vantresca, the Cowboy played by Justin Theroux.
This is a no-brainer but quite, quite entertaining and what more could one ask for?
Directed by David Mirkin
2.5 bytes
4 Bytes = Superb 3 Bytes = Too good to miss 2 Bytes = Average 1 Byte = Save your money
Ben Hoffman
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