Plot Summary - Teen mean girl movie. Claire is the new girl in town, her family just arrived from Florida to live in the guest house of Westchester rich family, the Blocks, who have a stuck-up daughter named Massie just Claire's age. Massie (Elizabeth McLaughlin) is leader of a quartet of shallow seventh grade mean girls, popular fashionistas known as the "Pretty Committee" who strut four in a row down the halls of their exclusive girl's school in expensive mini skirts, designer handbags, heavy makeup (for 7th graders), and lots of attitude. Claire is blonde, pretty, and nice - but her first mistake was arriving to live in the guest house wearing overalls and a hideous puffy pink jacket. Second - she calls Massie a "bitch" the first day of school after Massie decides that her group doesn't "like" Claire. Claire is officially declared "OUT" and they proceed to pick on her, make fun of her, play cruel tricks on her, and ignore her as she sits alone in the back of their chauffeur-driven ride to school. For some reason, these four girls inspire all to want to be part of their "special" clique (hmmm, seems strange to me) including Claire who tries her hardest to be welcome but fails at every turn. So she decides to sabotage Massie by sneaking into her room and onto her computer, pretending she's Massie as she sends insulting instant messages to the other three girls! The Pretty Committee decides to dethrone Massie and take Claire as new BFF in their clique, they give Claire a makeover, and she starts to act just like them (surprise). But - complications, complications!
Review - I thought this was quite an entertaining film - of course, very similar in style and story to other teen films of this sort like "Mean Girls (2004)" and others. The actresses (all unknowns to me) are pretty good - I love that typical teen girl disgusted look that Massie gets on her face ("gross, oh my gawd!" - or am I old and that's 80s teen talk?!). Of course, there's a shaggy-haired teen heartthrob in this who causes some complications for the girls, but he's given less to do here than you would expect. The young actress who plays Claire (Ellen Marlow) is almost a dead ringer both in looks and acting style for child actress Katy Kurtzman when she played a sort of similar character, a girl who wants to fit in, but stutters and is picked on viciously by TV's ultimate, original mean girl, the beyond cruel Nellie Oleson on a certain episode I remember from "Little House on the Prairie" (okay, yes I know my LHOTP episodes well). Apparently "The Clique" was direct-to-video, I didn't know that while watching - it's not super, super original, but I did think the film was quite enjoyable and fun to watch. The film soundtrack is mainly music of the current girl group variety, typical of the music featured in teen girl movies these days. Rating - 8/10 stars
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