Director: David Mirkin
Writer: Robin Schiff
Starring: Mira Sorvino, Lisa Kudrow, Janeane Garofalo, Alan Cumming
Synopsis: Two dim-witted, inseparable friends hit the road for their ten-year high school reunion and concoct an elaborate lie about their lives to impress their classmates.
Released theatrically at the end of April 1997, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion became an immediate favorite for anyone lucky enough to discover it among all the major action films being released at the time. And the film, directed by David Mirkin and starring Mira Sorvino as Romy and Lisa Kudrow as Michele, is one of the rare 1997 comedies that has endured. In the last few weeks alone, Sorvino and Kudrow made an appearance together at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, followed soon thereafter by a sit-down on The Late Late Show with James Corden. The two are still active in the industry, still look basically the same as they did twenty-five years ago—might a sequel finally be in the cards?
Whether or not we ever get a second installment, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion is quirky, entertaining, comedic perfection, still just as funny and witty today as it was back then, with director Mirkin allowing most of the humor to come through the lovable characters rather than specific situations in the plot. You know the story: Ten years have passed since high school, and Romy and Michele are still best friends, living together in Venice, California. When they receive word about their high school reunion, they decide to go pretending they’re a lot more successful than they actually are.
The movie works on so many levels. It’s one of the ultimate hang-out movies, spending time with Romy and Michele a pleasure from scene to scene. It’s a great road-trip movie, plenty of drama and hijinks on display as the duo head by car from southern California to Tucson, Arizona. It’s a comedy that plays with surrealism, the middle of the narrative featuring one of the weirdest and longest dream sequences ever in a studio movie. And it’s so ultra-smart, even if the protagonists might be a bit on the dumber side.
Sorvino and Kudrow both arrived at the project at high points in their careers. Sorvino signed up shortly after winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite, and Kudrow had just completed her second year on Friends. Their chemistry together must not have been guaranteed, but from the first scene, their love for one another is clear, each practically finishing the other’s sentences. Sorvino and Kudrow made a tremendous screen pairing that is the number one reason why this film has endured for so long.
Another top reason this remains a giant cult classic is the amazing supporting cast Mirkin assembled for the production, the ultimate stand-out being Janeane Garofalo as Heather Mooney, a successful inventor who still hates everything to do with her high school days with Romy and Michele. The second half of the 1990s marked the era of inspired Garofalo film performances left and right, and this one’s the best, her sarcasm dark, twisted, and hilarious. Alan Cumming is also memorable as the nerd with a crush on Michele who also goes on to do great things with his life, and Julia Campbell eats up every second of her delicious screen-time as the one-time head cheerleader Christie Masters who’s always treated Romy and Michele as bugs to be squashed.
The incredible songs interspersed throughout are also a reason you can continue hugging this movie over and over again. With plenty of flashback scenes to Romy and Michele’s time in high school in the 1980s, the film provides a stellar soundtrack of ‘80s hits, like Time after Time, Venus, and Dance Hall Days. The score by Steve Bartek is a winner, too, especially in that aforementioned dream sequence that pushes the narrative in a different direction and gives the viewer a lovely sense of unease. Along with the fantastic screenplay by Robin Schiff, Mirkin’s direction, and the extraordinary cast, the music plays a huge part in my love for this film.
What stuns me to this day is how the higher-ups at the studio allowed Mirkin to make this comedy R-rated, profane not just in its language but oftentimes in its shocking crudeness. The film overall has a beautiful sweetness to it, in the friendship between Romy and Michele, in the period flashback scenes, in the iconic closing musical number, that some might have pushed Mirkin into delivering a PG-13 rating so younger kids could see it. If the film had been made just a couple years later, there might have been pressure from the studio to either tame the content way down or go more for the gross-out a la There’s Something About Mary.
Thankfully, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion is everything it needed to be, the comedy always coming back to the central characters, never betraying them just to get a laugh from the viewer. I could watch this movie every year and never get sick of it. Sure, it didn’t get any Oscar nominations, it might not have the prestige of big 1997 releases like Contact and Titanic, but it’s one of the 1997 films we keep returning to because it’s just so goddamn perfect. I still have hope for a new sequel starring Sorvino and Kudrow that would allow us more time to spend with these characters, but if all we ever get is the original from twenty-five years ago, I still consider us very lucky.
