A home-schooled teenager, raised in the wilds of Africa, is let loose as an innocent in the American public school system, and the worn-out subject of adolescent cattiness and bitchery receives an infusion of fresh blood, or at any rate a megadose of caffeine. The snap-crackle-pop script (from a book by Rosalind Wiseman) is by Saturday Night Live veteran Tina Fey, who also plays the sympathetic math teacher, the most human character in the group. In truth, the script could stand to take a breath once in a while, and the nominal heroine (Lindsay Lohan) too facilely straddles too many fences -- a naif, a misfit, a hottie, a math whiz -- but then again, the real heroine is Tina Fey, who we may be sure has a few scores to settle. Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, Lizzy Caplan, Tim Meadows; directed by Mark Waters. (2004) — Duncan Shepherd
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