I recommend this movie
I laughed a good amount, people in the theater with me laughed regularly as well
Having just complained about a lack of color/low light “naturalistic” cinematography in my Talk to Me review, it was great seeing rich vibrant colors, super well coordinated costume (done by Eunice Jera Lee) and production design (Nate Jones). love greens! red white and blue motifs..good stuff
theres a lot of visual gags in the background, nice touches
what it is really, is a spoof movie, it has the energy and pace of something like a scary movie or like a Scott Pilgrim, as well as a similar disregard for normal logic and reasoning as a spoof movie would have. its a real movie with a real plot not just going from gag to gag but it is absurdist and outrageous…everything is cranked to 11. theres nothing really off limits(?) I was personally surprised at what they were willing to make jokes about and how they went about it, some of these jokes were very funny to me, some of them landed very very oddly. There are a few sequences which had odd timing and one scene in particular [therapy at center court , in a circle sitting] that made me question the intent . It’s the type of movie where everything is a joke , and my frustration with this kind of movie is I need to care at some point , , , and when you [the filmmaker] do want me to care ,my ability to *actually* care has been greatly diminished. The semi circle therapy scene is one that I would say bordered on incoherent ..theres tone switching , multiple tones,,,and then theres reckless nonsense sorry . maybe it was cathartic for some to see a scene that flip about those topics, I dont know
I was also thrown off by the sequence involving severe violence against a lone woman. later on in the film the women vs men fight is awesome and functions like a fighting game does (men punching women in this context is ok, the women are on a level playing field, we accept the logic like its Chun-Li vs Ryu and it doesnt look out of place)….however in the sequence with the boxer and Hazel played by Ruby Cruz, it’s quite uncomfortable … the football jock makes a comment like “oh theres no difference between men and women riiiiiiight guys?” and obviously he’s in the wrong from the perspective of the filmmakers and writers Emma Seligman (director and writer) and Rachel Sennott (writer) for making a man fight a woman ,, ,, however the women at the school formed a self defense class to kick off the movie , , self defense is about survival not about winning a fight against a male boxer as a woman. we are made to look at grotesque violence that feels much more real than the stylistically fantastic fisticuffs we are treated to at the end. the point of this sequence is to expose the fight club founders as frauds, i understand that…was it necessary to do it the way that they did ? i cannot find a way to say yes. maybe im just an idiot but that sequence seemed beyond the pale quite frankly . watch a woman be brutally beaten by a man to prove a point and move the plot along, with realistic gore and bruises etc. IDK
Otherwise super sharp very well written . Sennott and Ayo Edebiri are wonderful as the leads. All the acting is top notch. there was an overuse of stammering in leiu of any joke , punchline etc. Sennott and Edebiri spent a bit too much time standing there with nothing to say as the joke or saying a whole lot of nothing. Marshawn Lynch was funny and I love him I wish they did more with him, his character made no sense but he was entertaining as always.
Edebiri in particular ,,,, I think will do great things in the future, I want to see more.
This movie went where Barbie movie could not go…it feels like a hyper tuned extension of Greta Gerwig’s vision, the absurdist commentary on the patriarchy never dips into TEXT (america ferrara looks at screen to deliver a monologue)…Ryan Gosling was Ken but in this men are golden retrievers , complete caricatures, one track minds , only understanding football sport touchdown and boobs , its hilarious what they did in their skewering of jock culture , football cutlure , american male culture.
what this movie is truly,,,is the perspective of two high schoolers, two young women who are so detached from their lives and what they deal with, to0 cool for anything but their own in jokes and digs at everybody else. jocks are lame, school is lame, cheerleading is stupid, class is lame, our teacher sucks …thats the attitude…so everything that happens is so absurd…a car barely grazing the star QB so he goes down as if he was shot by a .50 cal in a 2 minute sequence . .. … ‘can you believe that like what was that’ it has the extremely warped perspective that two friends would have to exaggerate a story to each other to paint themselves in the best possible light (ding ding ding), , , , , as I said before, they essentially don’t care about anything, except , until, finally, they do have sincere moments regarding relationships, , they do end up caring about each other. thats when the film really gets serious. everything else is a joke and i mean everythinnggggggg, but lifelong friendships are not, and neither is love.
Emma Seligman clearly gets it, is young enough to get it , to get the moment and the culture enough to make the movie. its well crafted, i am impressed.
the funniest sequence involved a get back at the cheating BF scene spoof,, i will not spoil it , hilarious. good music also. good movie…many laughs, i havent read any reaction so i dont know if what I “””””””””took issue”””””” with is just me or not. u tell me
