Mean Girls and The Book of Clarence

The latest version of Tina Fey's Mean Girls juggernaut has arrived in theaters carrying the same Hi-NRG inclusiveness that has made earlier iterations enormous hits (and big paydays for the Queen Bee of SNL alums).

Directed by the duo of Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., Mean Girls is a now familiar tale of high school cliques and trauma, so familiar that since the original film in 2004 "mean girls" has become a separate class of teen-ager for many.

New arrival to North Shore High School Cady Heron (Angourie Rice of The Nice Guys) is befriended by queer outcasts Janice and Damian (Auli'i Cravalho and Jaquel Spivey, a hilarious pair) who then encourage the newbie to infiltrate the camp of the Plastics (the eponymous Mean Girls) which is led by Campus Queen Regina George (Reneé Rapp). Cady is to report back what Regina and her wannabees (Avantika and Bebe Wood) are up to. The Plastics keep the scorching judgments about their schoolmates in a "bedazzled" (thank you, Moira Rose) portfolio, the Burn Book, a central plot device.

A math whiz, Cady falls for a handsome Regina-reject in calculus (Christopher Briney), which, predictably, complicates the mission and Cady's life as it evokes the Queen's wrath. All of this is observed with varying degrees of remove by Mr. Duvall (Tim Meadows) and Ms. Norbury (Ms. Fey) and told through energetic pop-y tunes and nimble ensemble choreography.

Mean Girls is free of moralistic bromides, especially as articulated by the few "grumps" in the picture, but it is not without healthy messaging about self-identity and the power of transformation, even for people who aren't quite done with growing.

British director Jeymes Samuel's The Book of Clarence is an interesting idea in need of a more cohesive presentation. LaKeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah, Atlanta) stars as the title character, who is the twin brother of one of Jesus's 12 disciples. Yes, nearly everyone in the picture -- including Jesus and his Apostles, is Black. The exceptions are, of course, the Romans, who here are standing in for oppressive laws and enforcement.

Clarence is a first-century atheistic rogue and drug dealer, who with his partner Elijah (R.J. Cyler) are indebted to crime lord Jedediah (Eric Kofi-Abrefa), whose sister Varinia (Anna Diop), Clarence fancies.

Samuel matches the story's mix of religion, crime and romance with widely varying tones -- from the reverential to the fanciful and a thumbing hip-hop musical bed -- which is the picture's strength and weakness, to my mind. Was all of this intended and strategic or is Samuel exploring the more free-wheeling, expressive side found in his music?

After seeing throngs drawn to Jesus (Nicholas Pinnock), Clarence gets the notion to try his hand at being a messiah, using stunts involving fake miracles and mud-hut wisdom to raise enough money to settle his debts.

It wouldn't be a movie if the scheme went as planned, of course, and the dismantling of this one is swift and multilayered, ultimately wrestles with matters of faith and redemption, not altogether convincingly.

Samuel's The Harder They Fall (2021) was a fresh take on the American Western that benefited from his outsider perspective. I'm not sure from The Book of Clarence where Samuel, who also wrote the screenplay, is on the religious continuum. I don't think there's any question he's a believer, who embraces forgiveness and sacrifice as eternal truths but his faith lacks the rigidity of more orthodox traditions.

Maybe it doesn't matter, ultimately. Clarence will not be added to the burgeoning canon of contemporary Christian films, but it might best be viewed as an interesting though flawed attempt to make the gospel relevant, regardless of authorship.