As I was glancing over the filmography surrounding female comedies since 2011's Bridesmaids, the writers and directors try a little too hard to meet that expectation because believe it or not, that movie set a high standard. Paul Feig hits two out of three with Spy and The Heat (not Ghostbusters). Pitch Perfect was a celebratory and funny movie. I thought Bad Moms was a solid and surprising hit last year. But, the rest were mostly mediocre and they try too hard. With this movie, as I saw the trailers, I said to myself that I liked the cast but the jokes were not funny. Now, after watching the movie, it was a tad better than I thought but even though there is some chemistry between the cast members and a few more additional laughs than expected, the movie becomes less funny as they land the humor on more gross activities on a bleak and lazy narrative and it gets old.
Jess, Alice, Blair and Frankie (Scarlett Johansson, Jillian Bell, Zoe Kravitz and Ilana Glazer) have been friends since college. Ten years later, they have gone their separate ways as Jess is running for a state senator position and Alice has become a teacher. Jess has become engaged to a guy named Peter (Paul W. Downs). Alice keeps trying to get in touch with Jess as she plans to have a bachelorette party in Miami. Peter thinks that it is ok. While they are in Miami, Jess and Alice meet up with Blair (who is going through a custody battle) and Frankie (who is a jobless activist).
The ladies arrive at their beach house and meet their sexually active neighbors, Pietro (Ty Burrell) and Lea (Demi Moore), who takes an admiration to Blair. That night, Jess and the ladies go out to dinner having the time of their lives. Jess does also invite Pippa (Kate McKinnon), a friend from Australia while she was studying abroad, which makes Alice jealous. They snort cocaine, drink and enter in a talent competition doing a performance from they were in college, but gets ruined when Alice does an improvisational routine. The friends come home and do drugs when a stripper arrives at their beach house. He does his job in front of Jess until he calls her a slut. And, then Alice jumps on the stripper, accidentally knocking him over and causing him to render unconscious and his heard starts bleeding. Despite their efforts to help him, he dies and the ladies panic as they call for help by moving the body.
This is not a good movie and I was disappointed by this effort because I am familiar with four of the ladies as they have done fantastic work from other efforts. I am not familiar with Ilana Glazer but I am familiar with her show, Broad City, where she is a co-star and a co-writer and she is fine in the role. Nevertheless, there are three big problems in this movie. I do not buy their chemistry as much as I buy their individual performances and we will get to that in a minute. Another problem is the subplot regarding the husband which I thought was a badly executed idea to fill up the running time. And, lastly, this is the biggest disappointment: there is not much humor surrounding the situation or their actions because the humor felt predictable as it targets gross humor and the news after the revelation regarding the stripper. With this latter problem, the tone is all over the map where as I was more confused than entertained to tempt me to laugh.
Scarlett Johannson and Kate McKinnon, I thought, gave the best performances. Jillian Bell is a good comedic actress, however, her style seems to be more predictable this time around. If they were to switch Bell's and McKinnon's characters, maybe, you would have had something. As for McKinnon, she is fantastic in SNL once again as she portrayed Hillary Clinton and other non-fictional people real well this last season. She felt out of her element in Ghostbusters but in this movie, she's actually toned it down and is funny. I could not identify with Zoe Kravitz as her character is a bit confusing as she is a mother in a custody battle but has to go through some embarrassing comedy. And, Ilana Glazer is one-note in a character that is not fleshed out. It is like they have a symphony but they don't connect as well.
Director Lucia Anello has a concept that has done more times in recent years but does not flesh out the characters, tone, story or comedy quite well together. And, at best, it is a decent comedy. I will admit I was on board for the first 20 minutes but there is a scene involving a jet ski that was hilarious. But, the jokes were more misses than hits. The movie has moments of laughter and some good performances, but the story is a mess with a predictable situation from other movies like Weekend at Bernie's, Very Bad Things and The Hangover. It is resonant and unfortunately, the movie takes the female-led comedy genre a step back because the movie tries too hard and a bit lazy at the jokes but the story felt a bit non-existent as the writers know what will happen with the story without structure. Eh...it met my expectation somewhat. It was a movie that I will forget after a week at best.
**
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