Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

Year 6, Day 247 - 9/4/14 - Movie #1,838

BEFORE: Well, big changes are afoot.  A couple of weeks ago I nearly quit one of my jobs, but I didn't, and now it looks like the other job might be going away, for completely different reasons.  Hey, it was a part-time gig I picked up 22 years ago to help pay my bills, and it certainly has done that.  I just kept volunteering for more and more projects there, until I eventually became indispensable.  I could just go do that again somewhere else, I suppose.  I think I'll take a couple of months and try to re-adjust to civilian life before I enlist for another tour of duty somewhere.  This could be a chance to finally get some writing done, put my money where my mouth is.  We shall see.  I've still got a few weeks before I'm under-employed.

Linking from "Monsters University", Billy Crystal was also in "Analyze This" with Lisa Kudrow.

THE PLOT: Two women get into a lot of trouble when they go to their high school reunion and lie about their lives after twelfth grade.

AFTER: This film is a great example of why I usually don't take suggestions for the watch list.  I've taken people's advice for films like "Elmer Gantry" and "The Stunt Man", and those worked out OK, but in this case the last time I did school-based films like "Easy A" and "Bad Teacher", various women I work with said I HAD to watch "Romy & Michele", and so I worked it into this year's line-up.  Wow, what a mistake.

It's not that this is a BAD film, I have to score it slightly above "Parental Guidance" because nothing is overly offensive from a story angle, to me it just seems very misguided, like it's focusing its energies in the wrong direction, or perhaps no direction at all.  Still, some people swear by this film, but when you craft a story about two "losers", you'd like to think you'll end up with something quirky like "Napoleon Dynamite", and not something horridly wasteful like "A Night at the Roxbury".  Some people really enjoy "Dumb & Dumber", and those people and I have agreed to disagree.

Attending a high-school reunion is a common enough idea for a movie, and it feels like someone really wanted to expand the story to its ultimate comic potential, to the point where no one in the future would even DARE to make a reunion film (except for the "American Pie" reunion film, I guess) because that would be derivative.  Go big AND go home was the theory here.  So Romy and Michele aren't just losers, they're HUGE losers, and completely clueless.  They don't just tell a small lie about their lives, they tell a HUGE lie.  And the reunion's not just ho-hum like most probably are, it's a HUGE disaster, until it becomes a HUGE success.  Do you feel me?  

"Napoleon Dynamite" is a similarly quirky film that succeeds because it doesn't go huge.  Everything that happens is something that COULD happen, like playing tetherball or having an awkward time at prom.  Napoleon doesn't score the winning touchdown in the state championship, because that's just not who his character is.  He succeeds at tasting milk in the 4-H club, and that seems more reasonable, and quirkier to boot.  

After Romy and Michele finally figure out that they were in the weirdo camp in high-school (through a protracted series of flashbacks, where older actors all play younger versions of their characters), it doesn't motivate them to succeed, just to lose weight before the reunion (what a healthy body-image message to send out to teen girls!).  After that, they continue to fail upwards until they learn to stand up for themselves, and then magically get everything they ever wanted, without even trying.

Another despicable message, their salvation comes from the successful man in their class who's now one of the richest men in the world, and all he ever really wanted was to be with Michele.  So, to sum up, the most important things to be in life are thin and successful, and you shouldn't have to work hard to be successful when you can (presumably) just sleep with a rich man who will set you and your friend up with your own business. 

Also starring Mira Sorvino (last seen in "Summer of Sam"), Janeane Garofalo (last seen in "Permanent Midnight"), Alan Cumming (last seen in "Get Carter"), Camryn Manheim, Justin Theroux (last seen in "American Psycho"), Vincent Ventresca, Julia Campbell, Elaine Hendrix with a cameo from Pat Crawford Brown.

RATING: 4 out of 10 fast-burning cigarettes