Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997)

Directed by David Mirkin. Starring Mira Sorvino, Lisa Kudrow, Janeane Garofalo, Julia Campbell, Alan Cumming, Vincent Ventresca, Elaine Hendrix, Jacob Vargas, Camryn Manheim. [PG-13]

The titular blonde bubble-headed roommates, friends since kids, plan on attending their ten-year high school reunion, but in order to impress the popular kids who shunned them back in the day, they give themselves a “businesswoman” makeover (claiming to have struck it rich by inventing the Post-it Note couldn’t hurt either, right?). Sporadically funny venture never quite gets going despite the agreeably deadpan lead performances, in part because Romy and Michele lack a specific hook that sets them apart from other movie airheads, content (apparently) to just be female variations on the Bill & Ted/Wayne & Garth model. Botches its own build-up by presenting a fantasy version of events at the reunion just before the ladies show up for real, and the incidents and mise-en-scène are both so interchangeable it’s easy to forget afterwards which moments were real and which ones were teased. Garofalo gets a few laughs as a moody, chain-smoking ex-classmate. The main characters were originally created by writer Robin Schiff for a late-80s stage play (Ladies Room) that also starred Kudrow.

58/100