Romy and Michele's High School Reunion is a 1997 American comedy film directed by David Mirkin and written by Robin Schiff, based on characters from her play Ladies Room. The film stars Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow as two girls who have not achieved much success in life, and decide to invent fake careers to impress former classmates at their ten-year high-school reunion.
Upon its theatrical release on April 25, 1997, Romy and Michele received mixed to favorable reviews from critics, and grossed $29.2 million on a $20 million budget. Over the years, it has since come to be considered a cult classic.
It was followed by a made-for-TV prequel, Romy and Michele: In the Beginning, in 2005. A direct sequel titled, Romy and Michele 2 starring Sorvino and Kudrow is scheduled for release on Hulu in 2027.
Contents
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 nightclubs, eating junk food, and making fun of movies together. At work one day, 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 confrontations 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.
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 inspirations 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 pilot for a sitcom called Just Temporary, with Kudrow and Mellor reprising their roles, but the pilot was not picked up to series. 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 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. Australian actress 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 at Valencia High School 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. The film includes product placement for the fictional brands Big Kahuna Burger and Red Apple cigarettes, which originated in Quentin Tarantino's films.
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
In the United States, it was released in April 1997, the same month as Grosse Pointe Blank, another 1980s-themed high school reunion film that Disney was involved with.
In Australia, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion opened in June 1997, while in the United Kingdom it opened in August 1997.
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.
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 76% of 66 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion has an admittedly slight premise, but it's elevated by ample heart, an infectiously playful spirit, and the buoyant chemistry of Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 60 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 it was "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 [is] cheerful, 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 Michele are cartoon characters, but the actresses make them both real and enormously sympathetic."
Home media
Romy and Michele's High School Reunion was released on VHS by Touchstone Home Video on November 4, 1997. It received a U.S. LaserDisc release on November 26, 1997, with a subtitled Japanese LaserDisc being released on June 25, 1998. The film was then 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 stars as Michele.
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.
Musical
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 July 2025, it was announced that a new production of the stage musical would premiere off-Broadway on October 14, with a book by Schiff, Sanford, Jay, and direction by Hanggi. Laura Bell Bundy was cast as Romy White and Kara Lindsay was cast as Michele Weinberger.
Sequel
In 2024, Sorvino said she and Kudrow were finalizing deals for a sequel, with writer Schiff returning.
In January 2025, The Hollywood Reporter said Sorvino and Kudrow were in final talks to return, with filming expected to begin in mid-2025 with Tim Federle directing. In May 2025, Alan Cumming said he would reprise his role as Sandy Frink in the sequel, which was aiming to release in 2027. It will be released by 20th Century Studios (formerly 20th Century Fox), which is now Disney's main adult-focused label following the closures of Touchstone Pictures in 2016 and Hollywood Pictures in 2001 and 2007 and the sale of Miramax Films in 2010. 20th Century Fox was the studio where the film's director David Mirkin had produced his more well-known project The Simpsons, with the original film itself including a clip of this show on a television.
In early 2026, Kudrow told Vanity Fair, "Where ... [the sequel] is, is — my fingers are crossed that they want to do [it], because I read a script that's hilarious ... and I know everyone wants to do it." Additionally, in February, Alan Cumming revealed on The Jennifer Hudson Show that the sequel was set to start filming in the summer. Filming began on June 8, 2026.
Soundtrack
Two soundtrack albums featuring music from Romy and Michele's High School Reunion were released in 1997 by the Disney-owned 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
