Starring Lindsay Lohan and Alison Pill. Rated general.

Teen icons like Amanda Bynes, Hilary Duff, and Lindsay Lohan (yes, I know, those last two names shouldn't be uttered in the same sentence) may seem the same to thee and me, but there is a difference: Lohan will still be working A-list movies when the other Disney-type ditzes are doing the supper-club circuit in Des Moines.

After proving herself unusually resourceful in the excellent remakes of The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday, the precocious Lohan is perhaps a tad too, um, womanly for this kind of role. And despite her durable charm, she is given more rope than she can handle as the poetically self-absorbed Lola (née Mary) Cep, who finds herself suddenly uprooted from tony Manhattan ("Goodbye, intellectual stimulation," she sighs on leaving the Upper West Side) and transplanted to the wilds of suburban New Jersey.

Actually, the movie begins with glorious aerial shots of New York City, which, as we've all come to understand, is an indication that most of it will be shot in Toronto, with some side trips to Montreal for that Soho look. This explains the severe lack of Joisey accents at the new school--and also the presence of Canadian actors such as Tom McCamus as the dad Lola left behind; young Alison Pill (Pieces of April, Perfect Pie) as her new best friend, the relatively strait-laced Ella (they share a passion for a fictional angst-rock band and its lead singer, Stu [Adam Garcia]); and Sheila McCarthy, as Ella's uptight mother.

Wherever we happen to be in this lazy, randomly plotted, and very well art-directed Mouse House dramedy--adapted by Welsh director Sara Sugarman (Very Annie Mary) from Dyan Sheldon's kids' novel--the point is that Lola sees herself as "a flamingo in a flock of pigeons". It's a quality noted by drama teacher Miss Baggoli, played with reliably over-the-top enthusiasm by standout Carol Kane, who casts the teen in a hip-hop update of Pygmalion. Certainly, Lola is the only 15-year-old in Dellwood, N.J., who dresses like a '60s flower child one day and like Julianne Moore in Far From Heaven the next. Still, her showboating tendencies are matched by those of Carla (Megan Fox), who tries to make life hell for the newcomer.

The trap that screenwriter Gail Parent falls into is not letting us view Lola's articulate selfishness with enough objectivity, so it takes a while for astute audiences to notice that, in essence, Lola is just as bitchy as Carla. We just prefer to root for our snot-nosed, lip-synching, dance-challenged solipsist, not theirs.

Come to think of it, everything in life can really be boiled down to one conflict: Britney versus Christina.