Georgia Rule: B

In a female-bonding category all of its own, Georgia Rule is a nearly perfect blend of comedy, drama and romance. Lindsay Lohan shows a surprisingly strong ability to play a serious role - much better than her fluffy Mean Girls character. Although it may look like a chick flick on the surface, the movie is actually infused with drama and serious issues, and its unlikely characters are surprisingly able to pull it off.

California-raised Rachel (Lindsay Lohan) is a stuck-up, spoiled brat who, because of her rebellious history at home and inability to get along with her mother Lilly (Felicity Huffman), is sent to small-town Idaho for the summer to live with her grandmother Georgia (Jane Fonda). Georgia expects Rachel to follow her strict orders - dinner at 6, no exceptions - and anything that seems unfair is simply declared "Georgia rule."

Despite some predictability in the plot, the movie soon turns into a serious drama about Rachel's dark past of being sexually abused by her stepfather. But Lilly, who first refuses to believe her daughter's horrifying story, soon finds herself back in Idaho with both her mother and daughter attempting to find the truth in a bed of lies.

Standing apart from typical romantic comedies, the movie takes a lighthearted plot and turns it into a drama about overcoming unlikely obstacles. It does not just brush the surface of the situation's serious emotional effects, and both Lohan and Huffman do a good job of portraying the hurt and scars that come with their family's history of sexual abuse. On the flip side, the movie is filled with hilarity from an unconventional family who scream at each other and have dysfunctional problems, just like most real families do.

For Lohan, this movie is definitely an improvement from her former movies like Mean Girls and Just My Luck, though nothing compares to the glory days of The Parent Trap. And although I would still rather have seen someone else in Lohan's role, perhaps director Gary Marshall just couldn't think of another actress with such a natural affinity for playing a spoiled brat.