Main cast: Lindsay Lohan (Mary Elizabeth Cep), Adam Garcia (Stu Wolff), Glenne Headly (Karen Cep), Megan Fox (Carla), Alison Pill (Ella), Eli Marienthal (Sam), and Carol Kane (Miss Baggoli)
Director: Sara Sugarman
This movie is more appropriate for an audience below the age of fifteen as opposed to a “teen audience” in general. The reason I am saying this is because Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen is simultaneously a sickening Mary Sue movie and a movie completely detached from reality at once. Anyone with even an iota of cynicism will be too busy hurling verbal abuse at the screen.
Mary Elizabeth Cep, or Lola as she’d insist on being called, is crushed when her mother Karen arranges for them to move from Greenwich Village to suburban hell in New Jersey. Lola wants to be an actress so how will she realize her dreams in New Jersey? After befriending plain gal Ella (they are both big fans of Stu Wolff and his band Sidarthur), she plans to become a special gal at her school by playing Eliza Doolittle in an updated musical of My Fair Lady. But she has to contend with Carla, the most popular girl in school who also wants to be Eliza. Carla has a trump card over Lola: Carla has VIP invitations to Sidarthur’s final concert as well as an invitation to the party after the concert. Lola subsequently decides to drag Ella along to crash the concert and the party.
While in a way I can empathize with Lola’s need to feel special by making up stories to cover her otherwise boring and even depressing reality (her parents aren’t married or even living together anymore, so she invents a dead rock star father to impress people), this movie gives off contradictory vibes regarding Lola. On one hand, Lola learns that sometimes it’s better to be herself. But on the other hand, the movie also rewards Lola for her big fibs. People who dislike Mary Sue heroines take heed – Lola cures Stu Wolff from alcoholism by gently chiding him about it and everybody except for Carla thinks that Lola is One Special Lady that makes them learn something special about themselves.
This movie has no leg to stand on when it comes to reality. In this movie, nobody blinks an eye when Stu, a rock star, invites high school girls to change in his rooms. Aside from a mention of people taking drugs, nobody seems to actually do the things people do with debauched drunk rock stars. The parents and teachers in this movie have no problems when their daughters spend the night over at a rock star’s party, and these adults are portrayed as responsible people in this movie!
Teenage girls who have yet to read Cintra Wilson and still dream of falling in love with a rock star who will fall in love with them back in a G-rated love story will enjoy this movie the same way they enjoy those Lizzie Mcguire movies. Everyone else is better off watching the other Lindsay Lohan vehicle, Mean Girls, where at least it often flirts with irony with both eyes open.
