Romy And Michele's High School Reunion

''Romy and Michele's High School Reunion'' is a 1997 American comedy film directed by David Mirkin and starring Mira Sorvino, Lisa Kudrow, and Janeane Garofalo. The plot revolves around two women who appear to have not achieved much success in life, and decide to invent fake careers to impress former classmates at their ten-year high school reunion. The characters are taken from the stage play ''Ladies Room'', which also featured Kudrow. The film received positive reviews from critics and is considered a cult classic.

Plot

As high school students in Tucson, Arizona in 1987, Romy White and Michele Weinberger are continually bullied by the "A-Group," a small group of popular, yet mean, girls, led by cheerleader Christie Masters, who humiliates them repeatedly. Romy also has a crush on Christie’s boyfriend, athlete Billy Christianson. Their classmate Heather Mooney is in love with a geek named Sandy Frink, but Sandy has a crush on Michele. Finally, at the prom, Romy asks Billy to dance with her. He agrees, but he and Christie trick the girls into thinking he has dumped Christie to be with Romy. Romy waits all night to dance with him, but he has already left with Christie. Michele dances with Romy instead.

Ten years later, Romy and Michele live together in an apartment in Los Angeles, California. Romy works as a cashier in the service department at a Jaguar dealership and Michele is unemployed. They are single, unambitious, and enjoy a casual lifestyle consisting mostly of dancing at the nightclub. At work, Romy encounters Heather, who is now a successful businesswoman. Heather informs her about their upcoming ten-year high school reunion.

Romy realizes that their lack of achievements will not make a good impression at the reunion. Failing at their last-ditch attempts to improve themselves, they decide to fake success by showing up in an expensive car and business suits. Romy borrows a Jaguar from a co-worker, and Michele makes their outfits. En route to the reunion, they decide to claim that they invented the Post-it note, believing that no one will know better. A confrontation over the details of their lie escalates into a fight about their friendship, and they decide to part ways once they reach the reunion.

When they arrive at the reunion, Romy leaves Michele asleep in the car, and Michele dreams that she and Romy each separately claim to reunion attendees to have invented Post-its without the help of the other. She begins a romance with Sandy, who is now wealthy and attractive, and Romy gets together with Billy. The two refuse to speak to each other for decades until Romy is on her deathbed; Michele calls her to make amends, but they rehash old arguments and the dream ends with Romy's death.

Michele wakes up and enters the real reunion. The A-group are all pregnant, and Christie is married to Billy and has two children already. Romy starts to tell the Post-it story, but Heather arrives and unintentionally reveals the lie by telling everyone the real inventor's name. Christie and her friends taunt Romy, who runs out of the room. Michele comforts her and the pair reconcile, deciding to be themselves instead of trying to impress others. They change into brightly colored homemade outfits and return to the reunion.

Christie makes fun of their clothes, but Lisa Luder, a former A-group girl who is now a fashion editor for '' Vogue,'' approves of the outfits; Lisa coolly dismisses Christie's objections and the rest of the A-group women abandon her.

Sandy, now wealthy and successful, arrives via helicopter. He confesses that he still loves Michele and asks her to dance with him. Michele agrees, as long as Romy can dance with them. Their dance receives huge applause, and Sandy escorts them to his helicopter. On their way out, they encounter Billy, who is unhappy in his marriage to Christie and boorishly hits on Romy. As turnabout for the trick he and Christie played on her at their prom, she convinces him to return to his hotel room to wait for her, but instead leaves the reunion with Michele and Sandy in the latter's helicopter.

Six months later, back in Los Angeles, Romy and Michele have opened a successful fashion boutique with their homemade designs using money borrowed from Sandy.

Cast

Production

Development

The Romy and Michele characters first appeared in the 1988 stage play ''Ladies Room'', which was written by Robin Schiff. Schiff was in the comedy troupe The Groundlings with Lisa Kudrow, who starred in the play as Michele opposite Christie Mellor as Romy. Schiff said her inspiration for the characters of Romy and Michele “were loosely based, just visually, on these girls I used to see going into a club on Sunset Blvd. You'd see these two friends, and they looked like they got dressed together and were wearing different versions of the same thing."

''Ladies Room'' was then adapted into a sitcom pilot called ''Just Temporary,'' with Kudrow and Mellor reprising their roles, but the pilot was not picked up. Around this time, film executives at the Disney subsidiary Touchstone came across Schiff's play while "looking for a ‘female version of ''Wayne's World'."'' Schiff was initially reluctant to adapt the play into a film, thinking some scenes would not transfer well to a movie. After Schiff pondered about what it might be like if Romy and Michele were invited to their high school reunion ("…And it wasn't until they fill out the questionnaire when they realize their lives hadn't amounted to anything. That seemed funny to me.") Schiff began work on the script, which she would spend the next five years developing. Schiff based the characters' friendship partly on her relationship with her best friend. “One day we were stuck on a plane on a tarmac, and started reading the ''Sky Mall'' catalog and laughing our asses off. That was the kind of friend you want to hang out with—that even stuck on a plane on the tarmac you can still have fun."

Casting

Kudrow's rising stardom from the show ''Friends'' played a part in the film successfully getting through the development stage. Toni Collette was a strong contender for the role of Romy and met with director David Mirkin. The studio offered the role to Mira Sorvino, who at that point was about to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the film ''Mighty Aphrodite''. Said Mirkin, “It was definitely a long shot, but I heard she wanted to meet so we had lunch, and I instantly knew that she could do it. Romy and Michele were conceived as one tall and one short, but I loved the idea of Lisa and Mira playing this idiot blonde power couple.”

Filming

Filming took place between April and June 1996 in Los Angeles. Exterior shots of Romy and Michele's fictional Sagebrush High School were filmed in Santa Clarita. $240,000 of the film's $20 million budget was spent on securing the licensing rights for the song “ Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper. Mona May, who served as the costume designer for '' Clueless'', provided the film's outfits.

Touchstone initially found David Mirkin's final cut of the film to be too quirky and wanted to sweeten the tone, but Mirkin insisted on keeping the edgier tone.

Release

Box office

The film opened at number two in the North American box office, making $7.4 million in its opening weekend, finishing behind ''Volcano''. It grossed a total of $29 million in North America. In the United States, it was released the same month as '' Grosse Pointe Blank'', another 1980s-themed high school reunion film that Disney was involved with.

Critical response

On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 59 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, declaring, "''Romy and Michele's High School Reunion'', written by Robin Schiff (based on her play) and directed by David Mirkin, is one of the brightest and goofiest comedies in a while, a film that has a share of truth, but isn't afraid to cut loose with the weirdest choreography I have seen outside a 1960s revival.”

Janet Maslin of ''The New York Times'' wrote the “candy-colored Romy and Michele's High School Reunion''’ scheerful, giddy fun” and praised the two female leads, saying “Ms. Kudrow and Ms. Sorvino make a fine team, elevating bubble-headedness to new levels of comic ingenuity.” Jack Mathews of the ''Los Angeles Times'' said "beneath the endless silliness of the movie beats a real heart, and its theme of loyal friendship keeps propping it up every time the thin walls of the story seem about to collapse.” Mathews also praised "the dead-pan performances of Sorvino and Kudrow...Romy and Michelle are cartoon characters, but the actresses make them both real and enormously sympathetic."

Accolades

The film was nominated for a Satellite Award and an MTV Movie Award.

Home media

''Romy and Michele's High School Reunion'' was released on DVD on August 24, 1999. It was also reissued as a special edition Blu-ray for the film's 15th anniversary in 2012.

Legacy

Though a modest success at the box office, the film steadily gained a cult following through home video and repeat cable TV airings since release.

In 2005, '' Romy and Michele: In the Beginning'', a prequel television film written and directed by Schiff, premiered on ABC Family. Katherine Heigl plays Romy and Alexandra Breckenridge as Michele.

A musical adaptation premiered at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, Washington in June 2017. The musical, directed by Kristin Hanggi (Broadway's '' Rock of Ages'') stars Cortney Wolfson and Stephanie Renee as Romy and Michele, respectively. ''Orange Is the New Black'' and ''Weeds'' composers Gwendolyn Sanford and Brandon Jay wrote the music and lyrics to original songs, including "Business Woman Special", "10 Years", "I Invented Post-Its" and "Changing Lives One Outfit at a Time".

In 2022, Kudrow and Sorvino appeared as their characters to present the award for the 2022 Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble - Comedy Series. In 2024, Sorvino stated she and Kudrow were finalizing deals for a sequel, with writer Schiff returning.

Soundtrack

Two soundtrack albums featuring music from ''Romy and Michele's High School Reunion'' were released in 1997 courtesy of Hollywood Records. The first album, titled "Original Soundtrack", was made available ten days before the official North American film release, while the second album, "More Music From the Motion Picture", was released four months later. Due to copyright issues, several songs which featured in the film, did not appear on either soundtrack album; songs omitted include the film's opening song " Just a Girl" by No Doubt, " Y.M.C.A." by Village People, " Addicted to Love" by Robert Palmer, " Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper, "Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)" by Sub Sub, featuring Melanie Williams, "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins, " Hello Trouble" by The Desert Rose Band, " Don't Get Me Wrong" by The Pretenders and "Have a Good Time" by Talawah Crew. Both albums were reissued as a 2-CD set as part of the Double Features series.

; Original Soundtrack

; More Music from the Motion Picture

See also

* List of cult films

References

External links

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* {{Rotten Tomatoes, romy_and_micheles_high_school_reunion

1997 films
1990s buddy comedy films
1990s female buddy films
American buddy comedy films
American female buddy films
American films based on plays
Films about class reunions
Films about proms
Films directed by David Mirkin
Films produced by Laurence Mark
Films scored by Steve Bartek
Films adapted into plays
Films set in 1987
Films set in 1997
Films set in Los Angeles
Films set in Tucson, Arizona
Films shot in Los Angeles
Touchstone Pictures films
1997 directorial debut films
1997 comedy films
1990s feminist films
1990s American films
1990s English-language films
English-language buddy comedy films