🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐

The second that Eleanor (Maya Hawke) steps her Conversed foot onto the Rosehill Country Day campus in Do Revenge, she’s met by an unofficial welcoming committee in the form of Godard-loving cool girl Gabbi (Talia Ryder). When asked if she’d like a tour of the manicured grounds, Eleanor volleys back, “As a disciple of the ’90s teen movie, I’d be offended if I didn’t get one.”

That may very well be the key to unlocking Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s homage to the films she considers “part of her DNA as a person.” Set in the present day, the film follows “fucked-up soulmates” Eleanor and Drea (Camila Mendes) as they enlist each other to “do revenge” on their enemies — Drea’s vile ex Max (Austin Abrams), who leaked her sex tape, and Eleanor’s “crunchy granola” camp crush Carissa (Ava Capri), who falsely maligned her as a sexual predator. 

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While Do Revenge serves as its own biting entry into the high school–set movies of sleepovers past, Robinson deliberately set out to reference her favorite ’90s films throughout the flick, with Clueless and Cruel Intentions  as her cornerstones. At the same time, the writer-director tells Tudum, “I wanted everything to be subverted and almost fold into itself. I also wanted to have fun. This movie is a wink, this movie is camp. And, so, really, what are the choices that we can make where we can continue following that thread and creating within that sandbox?” Exhibit A: Check out how the “Don’t make me over” line from Hole’s “Celebrity Skin” plays as Drea takes Eleanor for a makeover. 

If you’re a disciple of the ’90s teen genre, you’ll clock Do Revenge’s intentional nods from start to finish. You’ll also feast on the the film’s smorgasbord of cotton candy Easter eggs, from the Clueless-esque pastel plaid uniforms of Rosehill to the very, very mean girls (who just might be psychopaths) that harken back to the deliciously vicious cliques of Heathers and Jawbreaker. 

“I feel like what’s funny and great about this film is that people pick up on Easter eggs I didn’t even mean,” says Robinson. “I feel like there are more of them that are literal accidents that are just in my brain and... I made choices that were influenced by the films that I grew up on.” Robinson recently sat down with Tudum over Zoom to break down all of Do Revenge’s ’90s references, name-checks and Easter eggs — intentional or not. 

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Clueless

The aesthetic of the uniforms
The plaid-clad essence of Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) is stamped all over Do Revenge, particularly in Rosehill’s uniforms. “When Alana Morshead, the costume designer, and I first started talking, I had all these images. There were all of these really beautiful pastel plaid uniforms that are all over Pinterest that are very popular, I believe, in Japan. I really loved them and I saved all of them. That was kind of where the inspiration for the pastel plaid uniforms came from. Obviously, a nod to Clueless, but it was way more just wanting the world to feel very color-soaked and candy-coated. When you think of private school and when you think of uniforms, you think East Coast stuffy. And knowing this was [set in] Miami, it was like everything had to be color, color, color.”

Wait, was that [Cher] Horowitz Hall we spotted?
Coincidence? As if! Yes, Drea and Eleanor take classes in a hallowed hall named after the protagonist from Clueless. In fact, Robinson and production designer Hillary Gurtler had several signs on the Rosehill campus that were nods to different characters. “Horowitz Hall was the one that was the most visible. But yeah, that was all Hillary Gurtler. Hillary was like, ‘What if we did this? What if we named all of the buildings?’ 

We’re kvelling over those Mighty Mighty music cues.
Aside from the quintessential school tour and makeover, Clueless also hovers over the film’s music cues, with a cover of “Kids in America’’ (no, not during what looks like a Noxema commercial, but instead when Rosehill seniors get high on mushrooms at a ceremonial dinner) and a needle drop of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ “The Impression That I Get” when Erica Norman (Sophie Turner) is kicked out of tennis camp. You may remember the Bosstones from Clueless’ college party asking, “Where’d You Go?” Robinson also pays homage to Amy Heckerling’s lexicon near the end of Do Revenge, as Max snipes at Drea and Eleanor after the girls share a tearful heart-to-heart that “I’m kvelling” — one of Stacey Dash’s most memorable lines from the 1995 film.

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Election

Voice-over
At first, you might think that Do Revenge’s use of voice-over is a wink to Cher’s ruminations as the narrator of Clueless. But Robinson says it actually came from the biting 1999 political satire Election, which utilizes multiple points of view (four, in fact). In the new film, the device is used from both Drea and Eleanor’s POV. “The original script did not have voice-over in it. The voice-over came in post. As I was cutting the movie together, I was like, ‘I really want to know more about Drea and Eleanor.’ Obviously, there are many twists and turns in the movie. And so I wanted another device that could further make the audience feel like they knew them and then pull the rug out from under them even more.”

“Narcissists are too busy thinking about themselves to realize they’re being played...” 
That sucker punch of a line in Do Revenge also pays tribute to Election’s narcissistic teacher (Matthew Broderick), who thinks he has the world on a string. That is, until his perfectly curated world goes up in flames when he isn’t paying close enough attention. “That’s a [co-screenwriter] Celeste Ballard line that is probably my favorite line in the entire movie.” 

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Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion

Drea’s haute couture
Did Drea’s birthday party outfit immediately remind you of the one-of-a-kind looks that Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michele (Lisa Kudrow) wore to their high school reunion? You’re not alone. “We definitely talked about Romy and Michele a lot. I wasn’t directly inspired by Romy and Michele, but that was a movie we spoke about a lot in terms of finding the visual language and the vibes for the costumes. That was a huge touchstone for us. Especially since Drea makes her own clothes — even for the little dinosaur [Eleanor’s therapy pet, Oscar winner Olivia Colman]. We really wanted to have fun in that Romy and Michele way, feeling you could further understand the character by the things that she makes for herself.”

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10 Things I Hate About You

Paint-centric date = peak romance
Drea’s date with Russ (Rish Shah) at his family’s art studio immediately calls to mind the romantic energy of Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger) and Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) during the paintball date where they shared their first kiss in 10 Things I Hate About You. But the scene may also evoke The Princess Diaries, when young Princess Mia (Anne Hathaway) throws paint balloons at a blank white canvas with her mom, Helen (Caroline Goodall). “So, it’s a little bit Princess Diaries. That’s not something I thought of, though. It’s 10 Things all the way. Someone brought Princess Diaries to me and I was like, ‘I honestly forgot about that scene.’ I’ll be honest, I thought I was being original and I wasn’t. Kiwi Smith, who wrote 10 Things I Hate About You, actually came to one of the first early screenings of the movie and gave me her blessing. Then, I used it.”

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Jawbreaker

Glennergy (Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction energy) isn’t the only energy Eleanor exudes…
“I do think that there’s definitely some Fern Mayo energy in Eleanor.” Jawbreaker fans will recall Judy Greer’s Fern Mayo as the nerdy girl who morphs into It Girl Vylette. That homage extends all the way to Eleanor’s platinum blonde hairdo. “We went for it.”

And that license plate?
The first shot of Do Revenge follows a convertible pulling up to Drea’s birthday party boasting a “DUMBTCH” license plate. You might think that’s a direct reference to Vylette’s “BITCH” license plate, but it was simply Robinson’s subconscious at work. “That’s just my brain. I forgot that she has the ‘BITCH’ license plate in Jawbreaker. That honestly came from Netflix telling me to take out ‘dumb bitch.’ They were like, ‘They say it too much.’ And so then I just made the license plate ‘DUMBTCH.’ ”

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Mean Girls

Havoc in the hallway
Blasting Harvey Danger’s “Flagpole Sitta” while Drea and Eleanor expose Max’s incriminating texts is “totally” a direct homage to Mean Girls. In particular, the scene when Regina George (Rachel McAdams) releases the pages of the Plastics’ “burn book.” But the moment is flipped on its head when Max says he isn’t actually cheating on his girlfriend but is in a “poly” relationship, leaving Drea in disbelief as everyone around her worships him yet again.

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Heathers

Croquet
The Heathers of Heathers spend their afternoons playing croquet, using mallets that match their signature colors (Heather Chandler’s red, Veronica Sawyer’s blue, etc.). In Do Revenge, when Drea visits Carissa at her rehab center, she finds Eleanor’s supposed nemesis downstairs playing... you guessed it, croquet. But Robinson gave the reference a tweak. “Just to ‘do revenge’ it, we made all the mallets and balls pastel.” 

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Mean Girls 2.0
There are mean girls in Do Revenge, to be sure. But in true Robinson fashion, they’re not like the ones we’ve seen before. “I think the thing that’s interesting is that I love those movies. I think they inspired me tonally, but they didn’t inspire me very directly. I think it was way more about tone and look and feel. I don’t know that the mean girls in this movie are like the mean girls in those films. That’s not to say that they’re better or worse. We just told a different story.”

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Cruel Intentions

…or cruel imitations?
Do Revenge is dripping with cruel intentions, literally and figuratively. From the original perpetrators causing Drea and Eleanor harm to the plotting and betrayals of the two besties “doing each other’s revenge” that follow, the 1999 film is a touchstone. At a school assembly, Gabbi even reads Les Liaisons dangereuses — the classic French novel that Cruel Intentions was based on. Max seems to channel Ryan Phillippe’s Sebastian when he prompts Drea to send him an intimate video of herself like Sebastian’s “nudie pictures.” Meanwhile, Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You,” which is featured during a bonding scene for Sebastian and Reese Witherspoon’s Annette in the ’90s film, plays when Drea and Eleanor unmask Max’s bogus golden-boy persona once and for all. “That is a very intentional sync. I was like, ‘I don’t want to try and clear that. We’re going to use ‘Praise You.’ ” Also, the fact that Drea and Eleanor consider each other “fucked up soulmates” is more than a little reminiscent of Sebastian and his step-sister Kathryn’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) dynamic in the film.

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Speaking of Sarah Michelle Gellar…
No, your eyes did not deceive you. Gellar plays Drea’s “hero” of a headmaster at Rosehill. That note-perfect casting choice immediately plants you back into the world of Cruel Intentions. “It was very out-of-body to direct Sarah Michelle Gellar. That felt like a thing that if, after I took the Cruel Intentions DVD out of the DVD player, and you were like, ‘Hey, also one day you’re going to direct her,’ I’d be like, ‘What?!’ ” 

And that convertible ending?
One hundred percent was a nod to Annette driving off in Sebastian’s vintage convertible to Verve’s anthemic “Bittersweet Symphony.” Except this time, it’s Drea and Eleanor skipping graduation as they speed away in their old convertible belting out the words to Meredith Brooks’ “Bitch.” Could you imagine a more perfect song for this duo? Yeah, we thought so.