by Joey Guerra
Entertainment Editor
and Vera Khano
Staff Writer
Romy and Michele's High School Reunion isn't a movie that will touch your heart, move you to tears, or even leave you breathless at its exquisite writing or incredible special effects.
But you probably knew that.
Romy and Michele is a movie that will make you laugh. Not just chuckle every few scenes or giggle sporadically, but laugh practically every moment of the film. The title characters, played, like, to the max, by Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow, are so clueless that you can't help but love them and root for them when they get even with the "A" group of cheerleaders who made their lives hell in high school.
Director David Mirkin and screenwriter Robin Schiff are definitely in sync here, creating a film that pulls out all the stops in the name of comedy. They create an unforgettable duo in Romy (Sorvino) and Michele (Kudrow), two lifelong friends who soon realize their seemingly way cool L.A. lives are really nothing spectacular to bring home to their ten-year high school reunion in Tuscon, Arizona.
Romy is a cashier, and Michele is currently unemployed. Instead of losing hope, though, the two decide to find jobs, lose weight and snag boyfriends in less than two weeks for the reunion.
This calls for desperate measures, including working out at the gym (14-pound platform heels, of course) and scoping out the clubs for potential dates. When Romy wants to lose a guy that initially seemed like a keeper, she deadpans, "I just remembered I cut my foot earlier and my shoe is filling up with blood," as she limps away.
Romy and Michele never stops, even when the girls stop off at a trucker's diner to transform into businesswomen courtesy of some slick hairdos and black business suits. There, they decide their claim to fame will be something "everyone knows about but no one knows who invented it" - Post-It notes.
The utter ridiculousness of these situations are precisely what make Romy and Michele work. Once the girls arrive at the reunion, everything blows up in their faces, thanks to snooty old friends and former class weirdo Heather Mooney (a viciously sarcastic Janeane Garofalo), who exposes the real truth behind these Post-It princesses.
A large part of the film's success comes from the performances of Sorvino and Kudrow, who are the perfect pair of nitwits. Sorvino, who earned an Academy Award for portraying another funny-talking ditz in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite, is wonderful as Romy. She is definitely the brains in this unit, but without Michele, she would be lost.
After an impressive cameo in Albert Brooks' critically acclaimed Mother, Kudrow steps up to the plate and delivers a grand slam as Michele, matching Sorvino's perfect comic timing beat for beat. Her reactions to Sorvino's lines are priceless as Kudrow scrunches her face and yelps, "Yeah, like okay!" every time Romy makes a statement.
What's wrong with really liking a movie that makes you laugh? Absolutely nothing. Romy and Michele packs in high school horror stories, relationships between best friends, lifelong crushes and sandwiches it in between two trendy, airheaded babes who you can't help but love while you're laughing so hard.
These two gals incite more laughs than a dozen screenings of Jim Carrey's Liar Liar, and Romy and Michele stands as a definite Spring highlight. If nothing else, go for the music, 'cause it packs in all your '87 favorites: Wang Chung's "Dance Hall Days, Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a Place on Earth" and Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love."
There aren't any erotic car crashes, pink flamingos or man-eating reptiles. Romy and Michele is a big, fluffy piece of cotton candy, and it tastes pretty damn good.