User reviews

'Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen' comes as a disappointment from Lindsay Lohan after the very funny 'Freaky Friday' and 'Mean Girls'. Here she plays Mary, naming herself Lola, a girl who leaves New York, the city she loves, and moves to New Jersey with her mother and two little sisters. At her new school she becomes friends with Ella (Alison Pill), mainly because they both like the same rock band, Sid Arthur. Lola is a nice person but lies too much because she wants to be liked. She seems very sure of herself, but we understand that is only on the surface. Since the school is where most of the story takes place we need a villain, another good looking girl named Carla (Mega Fox). Parts of the story involve the bad Sid Arthur breaking up, a last concert they will give in New York and Lola and Ella trying to get in. Carla will be there since her father is the lawyer that represents Sid Arthur. Other parts involve a school play where Lola is cast for the leading role and Carla only for a small supporting role.

I am not sure why this film was made, but I guess to show Lohan dancing, singing, being arrogant, learning her lesson, have a happy ending, do some more dancing and some more singing. It felt more like a Hilary Duff film and I was not surprised to learn the part of Lola was in fact offered to her first. No offense to Duff, but Lohan is a much better actress and has proved that in films with scripts so much more intelligent than this one. This one fits in a line with Duff films like 'A Cinderella Story' or 'Raise Your Voice', films where you can enjoy the good looking lady but nothing else. I hope Lohan's next film will have the wit of a 'Mean Girls' again. I even have hard time believing young teenage girls will enjoy this one. There are some moments for them to be funny I guess, but most of the time it is not. Not for male adults, not for teenage girls.

I like Lindsay Lohan, a lot actually, therefore I was able to finish this film. She does the best she can, basically proving she is too good for material like this. Without her I would have hated this film completely. Since most people will not like Lohan as much as I do I can honestly say you will probably hate this film too.

"Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" is the story of Lola Cep, played by Lindsey Lohan, trying to fit into a new town and school after moving from New York. She wants to be an actress and she creates dramatic stories about her life and like some teen aged girls she gets over dramatic about the events happening around her. It is all part of her attempt to be more interesting.

I really thought the movie could have been better.

Lohan does a great job playing the "drama queen" and for the most part her character is believable.

Her new friend Ella, played by Alison Pill, is the nice rich girl while Carla, played by Megan Fox, is the nasty bitch rich girl and Lola's main nemesis.

I was in drama club in high school and those scenes did seem believable as the group is preparing for the school musical. In fact, one year, we had a freshman girl beat our the senior girl for the lead in our school play. That caused a lot of issues just like those shown in the film. Carol Kane's Miss Baggoli was a bit too loopy but my drama directors could be strange.

The problem was the story.

The main theme of the movie, as I saw it, was Lola building this fantasy world for her life, having it crash down as lie built upon lie does eventually, then comes redemption and she becomes a better person for it in the end. Lola learns she can be interesting just being herself.

That is a nice film in itself. Unfortunately, the filmmakers couldn't leave it alone and added an unneeded big city adventure for Lola and Ella. It is understandable since we need someway to have Lola's interesting fake life uncovered but it led to an unbelievable situation when she meets her rock star obsession. I kept expecting her and Ella to get into one zany scrape after another, but that didn't happen. If you are going to waste film shooting in the big city at least have something major happen.

The other issue was one of theme.

If the theme is that lying to make oneself interesting will bring retribution - in this case Lola's humiliation in front of her classmates, then the ending of the film didn't fit the theme. I guess it was just Disney's way of getting a happy ending but the stories Lola created were so huge it was not believable that she got what she wanted in the end. She turns out to be really no better than Carla, who gets what she wants because she thinks she deserves it.

Lola was far too lucky. A little realism would have been nice.

Lindsey Lohan showed a spark that could lead her to better roles. I really think that she could be a big star a few years from now. She shined in this movie and was by far the best part of it, bad script and all. I think years from now people will be saying "Hilary who?"

Personally I thought the most interesting supporting character was Calum Cep, Lola's dad, played by Tom McCamus. Those of us who watch sci-fi shows produced in Canada may know McCamus from his role as Mason Eckhart on the "Mutant X" television series.

Lindsay Lohan does give a very entertaining performance as Lola, a girl who moves to New Jersey, and the film really starts from there. I liked the locations and the costumes, really I did, and I am 17. Lindsay's co-stars don't do too bad a job either, and I liked the soundtrack. I liked the fact that Lindsay sang, and I liked the update of Pygmalion. However, the film does have a number of failings. Like a number of people, I wasn't too keen on Sara Sugarman's directing, it seemed more like just do what you normally do and we'll capture it on screen. The script was also very clichéd and predictable, likewise with the plot. I don't think the film's rather long length gave it justice either. Overall, not as bad as some people have said, but far from the chick-flick masterpiece it yearned to be. 6/10 Bethany Cox

I myself am a teenager and took my 10 year old sister to see this movie. I won't say much as to not ruin the movie for those who have not seen it but i will give my opinion on the mood of the film and such.

If you want to see this, don't expect a deep and meaningful (or realistic) outlook on highschool life because it is your everyday teen/highschool comedy with the over-used storyline of new girl vs popular girl then new girl gets the guy and brings popular girl down.

On a better note, Lohan's character, "Lola" was an entertaining one and i enjoyed watching her over-exaggerated perspective of things. I must admit that the set up of Lola's room and the way their family lived and the clothes Lola wore were inspiring. I don't know if this is going to be the case for everyone (haha) but i know that point of the movie made it all worthwhile for me.

I'd recommend taking a younger sister/cousin/friend between about 6-12. Remember, sometimes we need a silly movie!

Lindsay Lohan plays Lola, a hip Greenwich Village teenager who moves to a new school in a Jersey suburb, where she faces Carla Santini, a girl claiming to be the most popular girl at her school, a title that Lola must have no matter what. After trying to nab the lead role in the school play, the competition between the two girls culminates at a sold-out concert by Lola's favorite band that Carla conveniently has tickets to see.

The previews made the film seem boring and for the most part it is. There's not really a story and it's hard to tell what the real intentions of the film are. There were a bunch of little stories but none of them really went anywhere. I know this film is directed towards teenage girls but they deserve better films than this. The movie was just so lame and unfunny. The whole clumsy girl act is really getting old and it wasn't really funny to begin with anyways. They were trying really hard for laughs and it just wasn't working. There were just a few small chuckles and that's it. The only reason why someone should watch this is because of Lindsay Lohan. She actually gives an entertaining performance and she saves the film from being really bad.

Sarah Sugarman does a terrible job at directing. She doesn't have one clear idea for a story, just a bunch of random scenes put together. It was pretty much just Lindsay Lohan running around all over the place. Lohan doesn't really get support from the rest of the cast since they all decide to phone in their performances. The film is also very unrealistic and it sends a bad message out to kids. For example, two thirteen (or fourteen) year old girls wouldn't go to a concert in New York and depend on a scalper to give them tickets. Then they have this scene where the two girls are in the bedroom of Sid Arthur having a pillow fight while there's a party (thrown by a rock star) going on downstairs. It was just completely stupid and unrealistic. The ending is also pretty bad since it randomly ends with Lohan kissing Sam even though they hardly focused on this romantic subplot. This film was just an uneven, unfunny mess. In the end, Lindsay Lohan is the only reason to watch this and it's really just for die hard fans. Rating 3/10

This is the saddest excuse for a film I have ever seen! What a piece of crap! This film has no plot at all. It can't decide if it's about a school play, two girls wanting to meet a rock star, or a teenager overcoming her urge to lie compulsively. I would have been more entertained watching a dog take a dump. This movie is utter garbage and should never see the light of day again. First off, the main character seems to be more of an antagonist than the real antagonist is. How is an audience member supposed to sympathize with a selfish, obsessive, ignorant liar? Lola goes throughout the movie doing nothing but complaining and lying while her only friend puts up with it. Carla, her enemy, is more likable than her. And that's the truth. The romantic interest is barely in the movie at all. It's like "Hey, you were in this movie for like ten minutes, right? What's your name again? Let's end the movie with us kissing". It's was idiotic. This is a comedy that isn't. Please do not waste your time or your money, this film is movie vomit.

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen looks like a very over-produced film (every scene features loud bright colours, neon lights, heavy costume design..etc)and the scene where Lola and Carla (Megan Fox) are sitting in the auditorium features heavy blurring, thereby making the scene a tad jarring. I did think that Lohan, Garcia and Kane gave solid performances even if the latter two didn't get as much screen time.

The film is far from the worst ever made, but it is definitely one of Lohan's weaker films, especially compared to the likes of "Freaky Friday" and "Mean girls". I don't think the film is terrible per say just a little boring and very predictable. It was clearly a good children's book, just not compelling enough a story for filming. One for younger girls I'm afraid.

This film is the embodiment of everything I hate. Loathe, hate, abhor, detest, and despise. It gives us the perspective of a vapid teenage girl we're supposed to like, pitted against the mean-spiritedness of her even more vapid, less likable, tormentor. An hour and a half of whining and cat-fighting is tidied up at film's end with a gesture as shallow as the fountain into which one of the characters falls. What could have been a good satire turns out to be a warm, fuzzy hug toward every grating detail of spoiled-brat life that should have been its target. The performances are almost uniformly terrible (Lohan should have played the rich snob, for starters), and the film's rock-musical adaptation of PYGMALION (yes, you read that correctly) is one of the more painful things I've ever had to sit through. This is the rare film that can be described as literally headache-inducing. It gives me new appreciation for THE LIZZIE MCGUIRE MOVIE, which is a bad film, but whose star now looks like a beacon of modesty and talent compared to Lohan in this make-me-a-star-now vehicle. (1/10) (* out of ****) (Grade: F)

Mary Elizabeth Steppe (Lindsay Lohan) is moving out of NYC kicking and whining into Dellwood, New Jersey. She lives with her mother Karen (Glenne Headly) and her younger twin sisters. She idolizes rock band Sidarthur insisting everyone should call her Lola. She makes quick friend with outsider and fellow Sidarthur fan Ella Gerard (Alison Pill). She also makes quick enemy with mean girl Carla Santini (Megan Fox). They compete for the lead in school adaptation of Pygmalion and Lola gets the lead. Leader of Sidarthur Stu Wolf (Adam Garcia) is leaving the band and there is a farewell concert/party in the city. Carla's father is their lawyer and has connections. Lola lies about her connections. Lola and Ella sneak out to NYC and have themselves a crazy adventure.

This is all very superficial. Even as it calls out the superficiality of it all, it does so superficially. It's not smart enough to dig any deeper. It's all flashy, cutesy, and has the silly imagined sequences. It's a glitter-filled view of teen girl drama done badly. Everything is over-dramatized by Lola as indicated by the title which gets a little bit tiresome. It's just not that funny and slightly annoying.

This movie was an encapsulation of my teenage years. Even if you weren't an early 2000's teenage girl, this is still a great movie with great characters and effects. There is nothing else like it.

And then the movie happened. I have a soft spot for quirky teenage geared movies and this looked like another I would thoroughly enjoy but, no luck.

The movie follows "Lola", played by Lindsay Lohan, a quirky, overactive imagination teenager who is transplanted from New York to New Jersey. The story and character had lots of potential but most of it was lost on a mediocre story line that only took baby attempts at using the potentially hilarious characters. As talented as she may be, Lohan had no chance to rescue this movie.

Disappointing, this movie left lots to be desired and much story potential to be developed. I would not be surprised if there's a spin off in a year or so.

5/10 It is a good watch for the pre-teen in the family!

CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE DRAMA QUEEN ** A lot of fluff and nonsense. It's about a spirited teen who moves from New York City to a dull suburb in New Jersey and faces difficulty when she enters into a new school. One of her pupils has the Most Popular Girl title that she strives to have (after all, she IS a Drama Queen!), so she takes the lead role in a school play to attain the title. The shallow screenplay is so full of holes one wonders how it managed to hold its own at the box office. Production designer Leslie MacDonald and costume designer David C. Robinson have a field day making this rather trivial production visually rich.

to lie and sneak around to get what they want. That is basically what Lola does and urges Ella to do in order to get to do things that her mom won't let her. I didn't think it was very cute, and it makes all the pretty girls at school out to be b*itches, and that includes Lohan's character, Lola. She really wasn't that nice and felt she had to brag to be popular in school. And it wasn't very funny. It felt very childish, almost like the target audience was 7 year old girls. You could definitely tell it was a Disney film. And to be aimed for young kids, they have Lola looking to be with a much older guy, and they have him drunk most of the time he's in the film. And they have Lola and her friend running around NY city be themselves. Those aren't exactly the things you want to show your 7 year old is the proper thing to do.

FINAL VERDICT: Not very good. Don't watch it if you are over 10.

This long titled movie is the type of annoyance that should've gone straight to video because it was so bad. I couldn't believe how bad Lindsay Lohan was in this after she made some good efforts in movies such as "The Parent Trap", "Freaky Friday", and my current favorite, "Mean Girls". "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" is one of her lamer efforts, and so far it's the worst movie I've seen this year.

While watching this garbage, I asked myself. "What the hell is this movie about?" It's about nothing. There's no conflict at all or anything that will keep the audience guessing. Its utter nonsense and its about a girl named Lola that moves to New York, goes to a new school, tries to get the lead role in her school play while finding out that her favorite band is breaking up. No conflict=no fun. This was a pretty selfish movie that didn't even try to make it appeal for all ages and genders; all it cared about was its target audience, which is young preteen girls. The supporting actors showed no signs of a promising career and they made these characters even more obnoxious because these type of people don't exist. Everything is depicted in a very lazy and fake way.

These type of movies are not suppose to be boring, they're suppose to be fun for anyone. I've recommended many movies that might not appeal to men like A Little Princess and Mean Girls but 'Drama Queen' is NOT for us. There wasn't one moment in where I was laughing. I didn't like how the director depicted the streets of New York as if they were happy and vibrant by adding neon colored trash bags and some other redundant material. There were many off-putting plot-holes that young girls might not become aware of but anyone who's seen many movies will of course notice many flaws in this. My little sister liked this movie and she has seen it 3 times now. She's crazy, I guess it was because of all the bright colors and costumes worn by Lindsay Lohan and maybe she liked the musical finale as well, which was the worst part of the movie, in my opinion. I don't recommend this to anyone, not even little girls. There are better movies than this on the Disney Channel and that's saying that this movie is infact TERRIBLE because movies on the Disney channel are often bad as well, but not as bad as this.

2/10

Lindsey Lohan has made lots of good films so I wanted to see this one. I'm an actress still stuck in small pieces and she act, dance and sing, so green with envy. Its a light and fluffy affair like a soufflé and with about as much sugar. The story of a girl relocated to the new city of New Jersey and finding her New York attitude out of place gives this some cultural weight however this is a common theme of films aimed at teenage girls. Has every American teenager moved to a new state and fond herself competing for attention as the most popular girl? Or is it only the glamorous, pretty ones who have to go through this ritual and everyone in the cinema is screaming "I did that, that's me!" The directing is a let down. The script to isn't good. Lola and her friend end up at a party to annoy the most popular girl at the school because she sees Lola as a rival and an outsider. Lindsey does what is required of her as pretty, glossy and inoffensive. Among the cast who should be kept an eye on, is Megan Fox. I first heard about her in connection to 'Two and half Men' via an actor in the UK called Stephen Armourae who meets lots of people as he is a theatre journalist and an artist-designer. He wrote about her in a review ignoring most of the rest of the program, so I knew there must be something a bit special about her. Usually when he sees someone he likes they reappear in a portrait at sometime. Often from scenes they have been in. The best part of the film is Lola's exaggerated response to circumstances which many teenagers can identify with. Try to overlook Sarah Sugarman's bad directing which is like a pop video director did it. Badly constructed series of scenes with no thread. Then you may enjoy this. Unless you hate Lohan.

When the teenager Mary Elizabeth Cep (Lindsay Lohan), a.k.a. Lola, moves with her mother and two younger twin sisters from New York to the suburb of Dellwood, New Jersey, she has the feeling that her cultural and entertaining world ended. While in school, the displaced Lola becomes close friend of the unpopular Ella (Alison Pill), who is also a great fan of the her favorite rock band Sidarthur. However, the most popular girl in the school, Carla Santini (Megan Fox), disputes the lead role in an adaptation of Pygmalion with Lola and also the leadership of their mates. When the last concert of Sidarthur is sold-out, Lola plans with Ella to travel to New York and buy the tickets from scalpers. However, the girls get into trouble while helping the lead singer and Lola's idol Stu Wolf (Adam Garcia), changing their lives forever.

"Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" is a delightful entertaining, with one of those predictable but sweet stories with a message in the end, as usual in Walt Disney movies. I personally like the gorgeous Lindsay Lohan, who is a starlet in this movie, acting, singing and dancing in a sweet character. Further, this film is underrated in IMDb User Rating. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Confissões de Uma Adolescente em Crise" ("Confessions of a Teenager in Crisis")

I am a 31 year old mom on maternity leave who feels like she has seen every movie both new and old available on satellite in the last 3 months, and I have a 'confession' of my own to make: 'Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen' was one of the best movies I have seen during this past summer*. No, it's not high drama. No, there's no big stars (although after one viewing, we can all agree that Miss Lohan will be). But there is something strangely satisfying about this cotton candy fluff of a movie.

Of course, as mentioned, there's Lohan, a true triple threat: she can dance, she can sing, and, yes, she *can* act. Hey, do you see anyone else in her peer group not only pulling off this role, but SHINING in it--the girl practically GLOWS--the way Lohan does?! She's perfectly charming, but not syrup-y sick-y sweet, as I can imagine this character would have become in the hands of Mandy Moore or Hilary Duff. No, there's some kind of an 'edge' there with Lohan; nothing you can quite put your finger on, just 'star' power, I guess (and the 'killer bod', as we said back in my day, doesn't hurt either of course).

But it's not just Lohan. Every detail of the movie is 'flufftacular,' from the casting (notables: the 'dork' sidekick best friend, the cutie-patootie guy friend/crush, the rich-bitch popular girl, the wacky drama teacher) to the costumes (the high school girl's version of Sarah Jessica Parker's if-only-I-had-the-guts-to-wear-that wardrobe) to the soundtrack (Atomic Kitten, Simple Plan, Lillix, Wakefield, and tracks by Lohan herself that I guarantee you'll be humming). The movie is a sensory overload of eye and ear candy.

So, sure 'Confessions...' is 100% cotton candy fluff. But when fluff is done 100% spot-on, well, sorry all you movie 'snobs' out there, but, MMM,MMMMMM, it's fluff that eats like a meal!

* Just FYI, other stuff I've enjoyed this summer, in no particular order: Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and 2; 28 Days Later; Fubar; Laws of Attraction; The Butterfly Effect; Cabaret; 50 First Dates; Eurotrip; Mystic River; Girl with a Pearl Earring.

The central character of this film is Mary Cep (who prefers to be called Lola), a New York schoolgirl who is horrified when her mother decides to move the family to the New Jersey suburbs. (I wonder if the choice of the name "Lola" was inspired by Lindsay Lohan's own "Li-Lo" nickname). For Lola her native city is the cultural centre of the universe, and New Jersey is spiritually dead. To make things worse, the rather Bohemian Cep family are not made particularly welcome by their staid and conventional new neighbours, who disapprove of their lifestyle and of the fact that Lola's mother is a divorcée. (This detail did not really ring true. Surely these days divorce is nearly as common in conservative suburbia as it is among the artistic intelligentsia).

The film is a standard high school comedy, with three main strands to the plot. One deals with Lola's attempts to attend a rock concert with her strait-laced friend Ella and to meet her favourite rock star, Stu Wolfe. Another deals with the staging of a school musical based upon Shaw's "Pygmalion", in which Lola takes the role of Eliza. (This is not Lerner and Loewe's "My Fair Lady" but a rock version which transfers the action to modern-day New York). The third deals with Lola's romance with a handsome boy named Sam. A theme running throughout is the rivalry between Lola and Carla Santini, the beautiful but snobbish and bitchy daughter of a wealthy lawyer. (The glamorous class bitch is a recurrent character in high school dramas).

There are some similarities with "Get Over It", another film set around the staging of a high school musical. (I must admit that I have never seen either of the "High School Musical" films themselves). The main difference is that "Get Over It" is a romantic comedy, which just happens to be set in a high school, and in which the male characters are as important as the female ones, whereas "Confessions…." is a high school comedy which just happens to feature romance as one of its elements, and not the most important element at that. (The Sam sub-plot occupies considerably less time than the other two, and the emphasis is very much on the female characters rather than the male ones).

Until I saw this film recently I was only aware of Lindsay Lohan as a name in the gossip columns, the latest official Drama Queen of American showbiz, rather than as an actress. The meaning of the title in the context of the film is that Lola is a "drama queen" in two senses, in the sense that she is an aspiring actress but also in the sense that she is the sort of person who will make a huge emotional drama out of just about every development in her life, but in the light of recent revelations about Lindsay's personal life it seems unfortunately appropriate to her as well.

To be fair to Lindsay, however, the film shows just why she was regarded in 2004 as having enormous potential to become a major star. The freckle-faced redhead is not, perhaps, a classical beauty (the real beauty in this film is the appropriately-surnamed Megan Fox, who plays the obnoxious Carla), but she has plenty of personality and charisma, and makes Lola, for all her faults, into a lovable heroine. "Confessions….." is a fairly trivial and lightweight, if inoffensive, comedy, but the sparkle and energy of Miss Lohan's performance transform it into something watchable, even to those of us who are not teenage girls. 6/10