Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen | Not Much Drama, Not Much Comedy Either

Lindsay Lohan headlines this movie about a creative yet self-centered fifteen-year-old who is uprooted from downtown New York to the suburbs of New Jersey. Mary Cep renames herself Lola and sets out to conquer her new school. She makes a new friend, the rich, polite good girl Ella, who shares her passion for the band Sidarthur, whose frontman Stu Wolff (a disheveled Adam Garcia) is, for Lola, “the best poet since Shakespeare”. She also makes a new enemy, rich bitch about town Carla Santini, whose father is the lawyer of Sidarthur. The main events of the story are the farewell concert of Sidarthur (notice the reference to Siddartha) and a school play, a rock-opera rendition of Pygmalion. Somewhere in between these, Mary/Lola finds that she has lied herself into a corner and when things matter most, people don’t believe it when she tells the truth. There is a parable waiting to be told, and a lot of teen capers in the process.

Coming on the heels of viewing Mean Girls, certain comparisons could not be and were absolutely not avoided. There are too many similarities—girl starts out in new school, immediately gets into the periphery of the queen b. (b. not just meaning bee), and the queen b. is in a pack of three, even. Mean Girls was handled more maturely though, and was definitely better scripted (what can I say, I lurve Tina Fey—rhymes!); one thing, though, is that Lindsay Lohan’s acting remains the same. Of course we cannot fault her if she has been handed characters that aren’t exactly very multi-faceted. Since viewing was done in improper chronological order, the improvement from this movie to Mean Girls was lost. Even the rich-bitch-stereotype was better in Mean Girls (Regina George would kick Carla Santini’s @$$—and was way scarier as an antagonist).

Headline adults Adam Garcia and Glenne Headly, who plays Lola’s divorcee mother, are grossly underused. I was pleasantly surprised that Adam Garcia was in this movie, because I had been missing him from the Hollywood scene—not that he’s the most talented actor, but rather one of the better eye candy ones. Fortunately, he gives us a good turn as troubled rock star Stu Wolff, and has quite a number of the film's few comic moments. Other turns that were quite welcome on the adult front though were the seeming turnaround of Ella’s square parents, as well as the quirky portrayal of Lola’s father.

I never read the book by Dyan Sheldon, but it must have been quite good for it to have been bought up by Disney. However, the movie feels a little too saccharine, even for Disney; and at the same time quite shallow—the only characterizations delved deep enough into are those of Lola and Ella, eliciting the only emotion in the entire movie. Taking it by itself, even without comparison, you know that it is basically a star-making vehicle for Lindsay Lohan, something that Disney is quite fond of doing (remember The Lizzie McGuire Movie, launching Lohan’s teen queen archrival Hillary Duff?).

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen could have been funnier, could have been edgier, could have been a whole lot better. But it wasn’t. What it was was a bit of fluff that was a little entertaining, especially if you like Lindsay Lohan; but for people whose time is actually worth money, it may not be worth your while.

Best watched on a popcorn-and-sleepover night. And if you don't have those, then you have no business watching this movie.