The Clique (2008)

dir Michael Lembeck

Originally watched May 27, 2026

Such an embarrassing watch! I’m sorry y’all. What can I say. I was feeling sick last week and just wanted some nothing to watch. And you know what, this ended up being a little interesting…

If you know nothing about The Clique franchise, here’s a quick rundown. The movie is based on a book series about a middle school girl who moves from Florida to a very wealthy suburb of New York where she’s blown away by the class differences she sees. Her classmates (12 year olds, mind you) have designer wardrobes, personal drivers with luxury vehicles, maids, horses, pools, and whatever else they could possibly want, which makes her new GAP overalls look cheesy in comparison.

But the film couldn’t seem to capture this at all. No one was dressed in designer brands. The houses were smaller than they were supposed to be. Nothing wowed.

I thought about why this was and came up with two possibilities. One idea was the budget. Can’t afford to waste money on the wardrobe when you’re struggling to pay for the rest. Needless to say this was not a huge box office success. The other possibility was that in the real world, there are no real designer options for 12 year old bodies. Sure, some brands sell overpriced baby and toddler clothing, but you never see Chanel making a miniskirt to fit a preteen with a 22 inch waist. It really doesn’t happen. Which would mean if they were really chasing accuracy, they’d need to make a million alterations, which again, back to the budget…

Well all of this is to say that the message radically changes without the same visual class differences between our New Girl and the Rich Girls. It doesn’t stop to really develop a good narrative on mean girl-ism either, so everything just falls flat. Rushed, hollow, 2-dimensional. And the outfits aren’t even good! You can skip this one.