Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
by David Mirkin
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DVD details
Actor: Alan Cumming, Janeane Garofalo, Julia Campbell, Lisa Kudrow, Mira SorvinoDirector: David Mirkin
Brand: BUENA VISTA HOME VIDEO
Cinematographer: Reynaldo Villalobos
Editor: David Finfer
Producer: Barry Kemp
Producer: Laurence Mark
Producer: Richard Luke Rothschild
Producer: Robin Schiff
Writer: Robin Schiff
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 92 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-08-24
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Walt Disney Video
DVD Reviews of Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
DVD Review: Ditzy Rules!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm going to reiterate what a previous reviewer stated and say I absoulutely love this movie. This isn't the end all or be all of high school reunion flicks but a gentle lampooning on the genre. To take it as some profound statement about going home again would do the film a disservice. The soundtrack here is impeccable. Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino, two of the top comediennes of the previous decade, have chemistry to burn. To boot you have Alan Cumming, one of the great British funnymen, as the object of Kudrow's affection. Irresistable is an understatement.DVD Review: I'm the Mary, and you're the Rhoda
Summary: 4 Stars
Romy White (Mira Sorvino) and Michele Weinberger (Lisa Kudrow) have been friends since they met at Sagebrush High in Tucson. Since then they both moved to Los Angeles, and they live together, but other than getting out of Tucson they are what might be described as under achievers. Michele is unemployed and Romy works as a cashier in the service department of a Jaguar dealership. They do, however, have flair, style, and share a unique fashion sense.
At the Jaguar dealership Romy recognizes Heather Mooney (Janeanne Garofalo), another Sagebrush alumna, in line. Heather is obviously doing well if she can afford a Jag. She has no time for old High School chums, and barely conceals her disdain, until Heather hears that Romy is still friends with Michele, and it is revealed that Heather had a crush on Sandy Frink (Alan Cumming), who totaled ignored Heather because of his infatuation with Michele.
Michele, for her part, was indifferent to Sandy's affection, because Sandy was kind of a dork. They called him the Frink-a-zoid, and isn't that always the way it is with these love triangles, or perhaps it was a trapezoid or even a rhomboid, or some other kind of oblique-angled parallelogram with unequal adjacent sides
The 10-Year High School Reunion looms on the horizon and the die is cast. Though Heather claims she wouldn't be caught dead there, they all have a date with destiny.
Romy and Michele want to lose weight, get good jobs, and good boyfriends. When two weeks proves to be too short a time to meet their objectives, they go to Plan B: Claim to be the inventors of Post-Its, and therefore rich and successful. That plan doesn't really work out, either, but at least we get a good comedy romp where scores are settled, lessons are learned, and a good time is had by most.
Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow create quite the whacky kooks. Though Sorvino won an Oscar for Mighty Aphrodite, she doesn't have to resort to quite such a cartoonish voice for her Romy. Though Sorvino is certainly talented, I always thought that Oscar she won for Aphrodite was kind of a My Cousin Vinnyish fluke. If I could hand out Oscars, she'd get one for this movie instead. The part where she tells off the queen bee of the "A" group alone could qualify her for one.
Romy and Michele are bottle blonde bimbos, but their dark roots are showing. Lisa Kudrow received a degree in Biology from Vassar College, and Mira Sorvino a degree in Asian Studies from Harvard University, so during production of Romy and Michele, they nicknamed each other "Smart" and "Smarter".
An excellent counterbalance to their blonde humor is the dark and bitter Janeanne Garofalo. She makes those withering remarks that you wish you would've thought of back when you were being tormented in High School. She is a tough cookie, but then she has that vulnerable side. She can take the most polite and pedestrian prose, but through her brilliant delivery you sense the subtle malice seething underneath that thin veneer.
Alan Cumming made a great dork, and though he was kind of a deus ex machina, plot wise, he does get to finally dance with his beloved Michele, though only if Romy can dance with her, so it is still a triangle, albeit an isosceles triangle with the two equal sides of Romy and Michele. It is an interesting twist on the whole dance at the prom or reunion scene, and is set to the lovely 80's ballad "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper. The title fits in well with the whole reunion theme, too.
Director David Mirkin does a great job for someone who has mostly worked in television. He keeps the jokes and pop culture references flowing -- Mary Tyler Moore Show, Pretty Woman, Footloose -- he has the boys in the Jaguar Service Department watching The Simpsons, and as an inside joke, it is one that he directed. Though he worked mostly in television, it was good television. Besides The Simpsons, there was the brilliant but short lived Chris Elliot vehicle Get a Life, Newhart, and The Larry Sanders Show. Mirkin did a great job directing this film, and even his name is funny.
Although I told myself I was looking merely for a soothing presence, a glorified pot-au-feu, an animated merkin, I settled for "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion." Ah, the High School Reunion Genre, it must have been something in the zeitgeist of 1997, because that year also saw the release of "Grosse Pointe Blank," also featuring a 10-Year High School Reunion; only this one had a better selection of music, and the protagonist, Martin Q. Blank, was a professional hit man, so his problem was what to tell people he did for a living since graduating.
The shot gun marriage of action movie with High School Reunion comedy that was "Grosse Pointe Blank" didn't work nearly as well as R&M'sHSR, but Romy and Michele also had trouble telling people what they did for a living, since Romy was a cashier, and Michele was unemployed. Not very impressive.
Though Romy and Michele were not very impressive, "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion" was very impressive. Very impressive, indeed.
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Michele: Hey Romy, remember Mrs. Divitz's class, there was like always a word problem. Like, there's a guy in a rowboat going X miles, and the current is going like, you know, some other miles, and how long does it take him to get to town? It's like, 'Who cares? Who wants to go to town with a guy who drives a rowboat?
===================================
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY OF MIRA SORVINO
Beautiful Girls (1996) .... Sharon Cassidy
Mighty Aphrodite (1995) .... Linda Ash
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY OF LISA KUDROW
Hotel for Dogs (Widescreen Edition) (2009) .... Lois Scudder
... aka Das Hundehotel (Germany)
Wonderland (2003) .... Sharon Holmes
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY OF JANEANE GAROFALO
Wonderland (2003) .... Joy Miller
Mystery Men (1999) .... The Bowler
The Cable Guy (Full Screen) (1996) .... Medieval Times Waitress
The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996) .... Abby
Reality Bites (10th Anniversary Edition) (1994) .... Vickie Miner
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY OF ALAN CUMMING
Josie and The Pussycats (2001) .... Wyatt Frame
Spice World (1997) .... Piers
Romy: Have a "Romy and Michele" day!
DVD Review: Brings you right back!
Summary: 5 Stars
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this movie. My friends and I can quote it word for word! To have all of the songs all together on a cd is awesome! Great Roadtrip CD! If you know the movie, every song takes you back to the scene in the movie and you live it all again!DVD Review: This One Hits It On The Head - Time After Time
Summary: 5 Stars
Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion (1997) Mira Sorvino, Lisa Kudrow
If you hated your years in high school (and I imagine probably everyone but the select few "populars" did...ergo the wide appeal of this film!!) then you will connect with this satiric, wild ride chock-full of witty dialogue & brilliant characterizations.
Before a scant 5 minutes have passed in this film, the scriptwriters get your attention right out of the starting gate with great lines between the title characters such as: "You know we've seen Pretty Woman like 36 times and I never get tired of making fun of it" and later on in a nightclub when they determine that there are just no hot guys there and decide to dance with each other, Romy wonders if it would be better to be a lesbian. Michelle asks her if she wanted to try having sex together just to see if she was. "Oh no" Romy says "the idea of having sex with a woman just freaks me out." But then after a moment of careful reflection concludes "but...if neither of us has gotten married by the time we're 30, ask me again."
This movie took a chance on hiring what were then relatively new to the game players (Alan Cumming - "I am invincible" Boris from Golden Eye, Mira Sorvino from Mighty Aphrodite and Jeane Garafolo - Carmine the Bowler's daughter from Mystery Men) and was rewarded with the complex portrayals that usually come with older & more experienced actors. We all know how people can get stuck in a time warp and feel that either high school or college was the best years of their lives and never grow out of it. Such teen-angst-turned-impenetrable-adult-fortress is a hard one to pull off, but this cast does it beautifully. I particularly liked the quirky underlying Wizard of Oz-ish There's No Place Like Home theme - or in our heorines' case - There's No Better Person To Be Than Yourself.
And the movie's title provides the perfect platform for the double entrende of the concept 'Reunion'. Our 2 girls discover on their road trip that the reunion they really wanted was with themselves and to reach a true understanding of how wonderfully original, kooky and happy they really are.
DVD Review: Another dvd ready for an UPGRADE.
Summary: 4 Stars
This film is really funny, Lisa Kudrow and Janeane Garafolo steal the show. If you never really fit in in high school you'll love this hilarious comedy about finding out that not being part of the IN crowd is really not a bad thing, as well as learning to love who you are, and what makes you different is what makes you a true and unique person. The film is in 5.1 surround but is not in anamorphic(enhanced for 16 x 9 t.v.)widescreen.
Description of Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
Big laughs and hot stars make this a can't-miss comedy in the hilarious tradition of CLUELESS and DUMB AND DUMBER! Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michele (Lisa Kudrow) are carefree party girls who reinvent themselves for their 10-year high school reunion. With new wardrobes and wild stories of success, they make a big impression ... until a former classmate Janeane Garofalo -- CLAY PIGEONS) blabs their real story to everyone! But that's when Romy and Michele let loose with a surprise of their own ... and outrageous results! Featuring a sizzling hit soundtrack of favorite hits from the '80s, it's the comedy treat The New York Times calls "cheerful, giddy fun!"Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino play ditzy best friends who decide to attend their 10-year high school reunion, but they completely make over their styles and identities first in order to impress the people who tormented them. The two stars keep the film going despite various lapses and potholes in David Mirkin's direction and despite a sneaking sense that the idea can't sustain the length of an entire feature. A midsection dream sequence underscores the latter problem through blatant padding, but Sorvino and Kudrow--both of whom became established stars playing airheads on other projects--are worth the weaknesses. --Tom Keogh
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