Director: Miguel Arteta
Writer(s): Sam Pitman, Adam Cole-Kelly
Cast: Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne, Salma Hayek
Synopsis: Two girls on the verge of going bankrupt find new life in a wealthy business owner.
To be completely honest, I was not going to review this film. Thinking of the words for how this movie made me feel is almost as soul crushing as anything this movie had to offer. Well, here goes nothing.
This movie follows two semi-successful females as they are trying to save their company from going under. It stars Rose Byrne, who I think is incredibly funny, and Tiffany Haddish, who is funnier in a stand-up sort of way. This film is all about girls and female empowerment and was simultaneously written and directed by men. Even Salma Hayek, who is Oscar Nominated, was just dwindled down to being nothing but a hot body. And they could not stop saying enough about how she was a fierce and hot figure. These three ladies tried everything they could, but it is hard when you don’t have a crew that knows what they are doing.
The same issue I had with Underwater I had here. The people who are behind the scenes of this film do not fully understand what they are trying to do. There were enough “boob” and “coochie” jokes to last me the rest of the year. News flash, women are funny, and they don’t have to dip to this level. You have two funny women in the leads of this film, write the material that will allow them to showcase their skills. Not reverting back to middle school age humor.
The humor in this film never landed. I only laughed twice throughout the entire movie. Once for reasons unknown, and I chuckled another time when Phoebe from Friends came on the screen, and that was only because she was Phoebe. The gags never hit and the comedy never struck any chords with me. I didn’t want a masterpiece or anything, but I also didn’t want to be bored out of my mind throughout this film. I was so close to using one of my DNF’s and just going into seeing the end of Uncut Gems. Everything about this movie was just so stale from the humor to the story. The storyline followed the same cliches of two friends who are being pulled apart from each other, but friendship prevails. Except in this one, they had never really pulled apart from each other. Moreso they just went a while without being with one another, and their problems were instantly solved. It was one of the quickest turnarounds I had ever seen, and it is also the reason I bumped this up a half a star because they let me get out of the theater earlier.
Honestly, there really just isn’t much to say here. To be completely honest, I was bored and wanted to work on a little bit of writing. It upsets me that a movie like this cannot find a woman screenwriter or director to be a part of it. I know there are women out there dying for an opportunity to be put in theaters across the country, so if you are going to make a film about women like this let women be a part of it. The ONLY exception to that is Bo Burnham, because he clearly loves everyone and everything and can do whatever the hell he pleases after making one of the most beautiful films of all time.
Final: Just bad, I apologize for this lackluster review, and I will talk more about this on the podcast, but it was just so dull and boring. No laughs, no heart, and no risks. Let women direct these films, let women write these films. Stop giving projects to all male crew if you know the film is going to be about women. The only reason this isn’t a half a star lower is because it was short, but that can easily change.
My Score:
Current Tomato Score: 19%
Current Metacritic: 32
Current IMDb: 4.1/10
Oscar Predictions: None
Jacob is a film critic and co-founder of the Music City Drive-In. He is a member of the Music City Film Critics’ Association and specializes in the awards season. You can find him on Twitter @Tberry57.
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