Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo star in a strange comedy about two women in culottes.
SUMMARY
Barb (Annie Mumolo) and Star (Kristen Wiig) are furniture salespeople from the Midwest. After losing their jobs and getting kicked out of their friends group, the two decide to take a vacation to Vista Del Mar, Florida. They quickly become associated with a man named Edgar Paget (Jamie Dornan), who has been sent there by an evil super villain who is also his girlfriend (Wiig). It will somehow be up to Barb and Star to stop the bad guys from unleashing a killer swarm of mosquitoes upon the unsuspecting citizens. Also, hijinks will definitely ensue, some involving Damon Wayans, Jr.
END SUMMARY
I did not know anything about this movie going into it. Honestly, I had seen the ads and thought that it looked kind of generic. There was almost no information about what was actually going to happen in the movie aside from what was in the title. However, it did have two of the funniest women working today both onscreen and writing the film, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that this was actually a very good movie.
It was tough to find a movie to compare this to in order to even try and analyze it. It’s not like the movie Airplane, where it’s mostly making fun of existing movies by just carrying everything beyond the point of rationality. Instead, I think this movie is most comparable to the film Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, because it takes place in a world that runs on some sort of vague magical realism that just happens to be focused on our leads. Sometimes, the things that happen are normal, but Barb and Star’s reactions are extremely unnatural, making them the weird element. Other times, it just turns out that the world itself is ridiculous. The main thing this film does well is use that inconsistency to constantly keep you on your toes. At any given point in the story, it could play out in a way that is just slightly off from reality, or a crazy celebrity cameo could save everything, and you’ll be surprisingly invested in finding out which it is.
There are also a ton of small details in this film that pay off as long as you are paying attention. Many of the books have hilarious titles and quotes on them, as do almost all of the shops that people walk by, as do almost all of the T shirts. These little details really helped to give this movie a fun atmosphere, particularly when combined with the film’s visual style. I haven’t seen a farce done this well in a long time, because this movie understands that the entire point is that there is no point. Everything just happens in a surreal way, and that’s all that the film needs to give us.
Overall, I really recommend this movie. It would have been way more fun to watch in a theater, but unfortunately it picked the wrong year to come out. Still, a good distraction.
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