The bar was low for the Mean Girls musical movie. You’d think that might not be the case, given its predecessor’s place at the apex of teen movie fame. But seeing as almost all of the promotional material for the film has cleverly hidden that this remake is an adaptation of the Broadway musical (itself adapted from the 2004 movie), expectations are wisely being kept low.
As it turns out, that was for the best. The songs in this “new twist from Tina Fey”—who wrote the screenplay for this remake as well as the book for the stage production—work best when you go into the movie entirely blind. That way, it’s easier to get through the middlingly earnest numbers that fill the space between the film’s big showstoppers. There are a decent number of standouts, propping the movie up on the shoulders of its characters’ Juicy Couture sweatsuits. Most of them are delegated to the film’s star, budding pop sensation Reneé Rapp, who does a commendable, if inferior, job living up to the glorious cattiness of Rachel McAdams’ Regina George.
But it’s the new Mean Girls’ breakout star, teen sensation Avantika, who runs away with the movie in her uproarious number. As Karen Samuels, Avantika dials up the dopiness for a take that’s even more lovably obtuse than Amanda Seyfriend’s original. (Well, alright, let’s call them even.) It’s during Karen’s solo song at the annual Halloween party that the Mean Girls remake finds its groove—literally. Avantika’s rendition of “Sexy,” taken from the Broadway musical, is a thumping, cheeky electropop banger packed with punchlines. It’s the movie’s most delightful segment, so good that the silly self-empowerment song could find its way into everyday listening.
Avantika begins the song with an inane cold open. Karen is with the rest of the Plastics, recording what appears to be an Instagram story or a TikTok, singing about how she wishes that every day could be Halloween. “If I could change the world, I’d make it Halloween every single day,” Karen begins. “And also have world peace…wait, let me start over.” Karen scraps the draft and opts for a new rendition of her beautiful social media ballad. “If I could change the world, I’d make us have world peace, and also Halloween!”
Halloween plays a pivotal role in Mean Girls. It’s the point in the story that flips the narrative on its head and kicks the plot into high-gear. This is where Cady Heron (here played by Angourie Rice) finds out that Regina George isn’t the slightly prickly sweetheart she’s made herself out to be. She’s a scum-sucking overlord, just like everyone warned her she was, which Cady realizes when Regina takes her old boyfriend Aaron back, despite Cady relaying to Regina that she has a crush on Aaron herself.
It’s also the point in the film where modern teenage girlhood is explained in its most, let’s say, descriptive detail. “In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut, and no one can say anything about it,” Lindsay Lohan’s Cady narrates during this scene in the 2004 film. But the musical is far less critical of the way that the female partygoers are dressed. (Whether or not that’s in-line with how teenagers really act toward each other is a separate discussion.) In the revamped version, the half-naked costumes are all different versions of something sexy. No one’s shamed for their choices here; instead, Karen happily dances around the party to celebrate them while wearing her signature sexy mouse ears.
“When you are the hot one, it’s a full-time gig: Looking like what people want to see,” Karen sings, her doltish lilt eagerly jumping from word to word. “Once a year I’m not, I dress up and dream big, disguised as someone else who is not me—that is still hot!” Karen extolls the wonders of being able to finally be whoever she wants to be in this world, as long as she’s still sexy and showing some thigh. Sexy Quint from Jaws? Sexy Rosa Parks? Even a Sexy Doctor curing Sexy Cancer. (When told that there’s no such thing as sex cancer, Avantika looks into the camera and gives a proud smirk: “I did it!”)
The music itself is far more polished than the Broadway version’s track. It’s closer to an electropop cut that you might find on one of Charli XCX’s more mainstream projects or, perhaps in the case of this song in particular, Kim Petras’ Slut Pop EP. The de-musical-ification—a word I’ve just filed the trademark for—of “Sexy” makes the entire number a much more bearable affair. It genuinely feels like something you might hear at a Halloween party, surrounded by a bunch of scantily clad teenagers dressed as Sexy Corn.
The scene also flaunts some of the movie’s most notably stylistic direction choices. Fluid tracking shots follow Karen from room to room as she bounces her boobs, pushes her cleavage together, takes shots, and rubs up against her fellow sexy classmates. It’s one of the few musical sequences in the film that actually feels like it’s designed for a movie, as opposed to a music video. The number has those qualities too, however: After she proudly cures sexy cancer, Karen announces that it’s time for a dance break, and Avantika immediately drops into some pop star choreography, hitting every move and slapping her Sexy Mouse cheeks. The actress grew up dancing professionally, and that innate confidence makes this scene all the more electrifying to watch.
While 2024’s Mean Girls has a few other excellent musical sequences—including Rapp’s rendition of “Somebody Gets Hurt,” which almost immediately follows “Sexy,” making the Halloween section the best in the entire movie—none of them quite match the energy of Avantika’s fabulous performance. She’s game for all of the sheer absurdity that the song and the scene call for, and her clever delivery keeps Karen from becoming a one-dimensional, trite sketch of a truly beloved character. “Sexy” won’t just be the breakout number from Mean Girls; it will make Avantika the movie’s breakout star. And for the underwhelming movie-musical remake of an iconic film, plopped into theaters in the most desolate month of the year, a scene this fun is more than worth the price of admission.
