Romy and Michele's High School Reunion

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997), directed by David Mirkin

This was the second class reunion movie within a couple of weeks. Since my own class reunion (Timberline HS, 1987) is coming up in a few weeks, they are rather timely for me. I haven't yet seen Grosse Point Blank, but the banal lesson from Romy and Michele seems to be "be yourself." Well, I'm not yet so patheric as to require advice from Hollywood comedies, but if I did, I would definitely claim to have invented Post-it notes during my reunion next month.

This is the story of Romy (Mira Sorvino [less lucky in her post-Oscar roles than Kevin Spacey]) and Michele (Lisa Kudrow), a pair of fashionable but vacuous L.A. twentysomethings who realize their lives are empty, shortly before their class reunion. They make up a ridiculous story in order to impress their classmates. Although it works all right for them in their dream sequence (I don't think I'm giving away a secret on par with The Crying Game here, folks), in real life, it leads to further humiliation, until the deus ex machina arrives via helicopter.

This is hopefully one of the last films in the "dumb hero" genre (which began in earnest with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) but does so with an extreme miscalculation--we are supposed to sympathize with these dumb heroines rather than simply laugh at them. Aiming for sentiment is a gross error on the parts of the filmmakers. What do we care whether or not these shallow people reach their shallow goals.

The cast is all right. I've never been able to stomach "Friends", but Lisa Kudrow is adequate here, and Mira Sorvino makes a valiant attempt to invest her role with depth. Like so many movies, this one is stolen by Janeane Garofalo (in her usual role as a cynical, self-hating misanthrope).

First-time director David Mirkin comes from television, where he supervised such programs as "Newhart" and "The Simpsons", and the hallmarks of those series are evident here: quirky characters and stylized, stereotypical behavior. Mirkin also gives himself a pat on the back here: in one scene, a group of mechanics laugh uproariously at a television program: not only is it "The Simpsons", but it is the only episode of "The Simpsons" that Mirkin himself penned. Cute wink to the audience or self-indulgent self-congratulation? You be the judge.

In all, this film is reminscent of the weaker comedies of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (City Slickers, Parenthood, and a zillion other movies): funny, but not funny enough to be a great comedy; poignant, but not poignant enough to be a great drama. Except for Garofalo's performance (and occasionally, Sorvino's), unsatisfying.