Comedians in middle age are not supposed to watch movies like Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar. Kristen Wiig, the film’s star, producer and co-writer, is about the age of that man SNL highlights such as Will Ferrell, Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy were when they decided to go into more family-oriented comedies, try out more serious roles and / or retire from interviewing superstars. Wiig has meanwhile been removed from her breakthrough hit for almost a decade Bridesmaids, reunited with the film’s co-writer, Annie Mumolo, for something delicious, exuberantly cowardly. Barb & Star throw in sharp relief how seldom a big comedy star makes a gag-heavy free-for-everything that works. Wiig even takes on a makeup-heavy second role that reminds both Murphy and Myers – especially the latter, as she is essentially her own Sia version of Dr. Evil interpreted.
Not that Barb (Mumolo, also co-starring) or Star (Wiig) are aware of any archery for most of the film’s run. As a comic duo, it’s a middle-aged Nebraskan version of Dumb And Dumber ‘s Harry and Lloyd or Beavis and Butt-Head – less because of their intelligence levels (they are more deadly unconscious than stupid) than their shared sensitivity. Although the film gradually bothers some important differences – Barb is a widow while Star is a divorcee; Barb is more afraid of new experiences; they each use a slightly different pronunciation of ‘caramel’ despite their Midwestern accents – these women live together, work together and seem to spend almost every other waking moment together. They share an enthusiasm for poofie-ma-haircuts, “full of jewelry” and culottes, among others for (caricatured) women of a certain age and socio-economic position.
So when they both lose their jobs and start their only social outlet – a ‘talking club’ led by the tyrannical Debbie (Vanessa Bayer), Barb and Star decide to go on holiday together. Barb needed a bit, but Star is ready to see the ocean for the first time in Vista Del Mar, Florida, a paradise of warm colors and shells with a shell. Their modest plans for a week away are thrown away by a chance encounter with Edgar (Jamie Dornan), an attractive young man trapped in a mass murder plot, designed by a mysterious woman (again Wiig) who work out what for a place to sleep in a Spy Kids installment. (Again: this movie is very simple.)
It’s a flash of decisive genius, make Christian Gray self the impetus for the lustful reawakening of the main characters, such as a Book Club sub-site on a mild form of hallucinogens. At one point, Dornan sits in something like a love triangle of Wiigs, and his straight face connection with this ridiculous character makes some already amusing material sing absolutely, sometimes literally. The emotional slowness that made Fifty shades of gray so laughable here is played for real laugh.
G / O Media can get a commission
The Fifty shades no comment is made on the film itself, which illustrates the self-control by Wiig, Mumolo and director Josh Greenbaum. Granted, ‘restraint’ may seem like a strange word for a movie whose flimsy reality is so flexible that people are shot out of cannons and a submarine driven by a prepubescent boy. In this context, it means that Barb & Star trust his gags to fly past without turning it into boring pieces. This is especially true for his loopy sight. Do you remember sightings? Was it ever expected of funny things to be watched by comedy audiences, found funny and move on without explaining a conversational dialogue to the cheap seats? Greenbaum has a look at them, and that’s probably why this studio comedy never feels like it’s mercilessly carved out of a series of listless improvisations and other stationary tactics.
To be clear, some of the intended laughter does not come to fruition, and occasionally the film gets a little provocative. Specifically, some stray moments feel like non-sequiturs or jokes that could be inexplicably sent to the big leagues because Wiig and Mumolo had too much fun writing them. Yet this instantaneous, strange film has such a bizarre clarity of vision about what it wants to do that a few biffed jokes are almost a part of its charm, such as its sketch-comedy accents and deliberate defiance of logic.
In the middle is Wiig, who feels free in a way she has rarely had on film screens before – often seemingly designed, given how often she has chosen to choose parts or indie dramas over large vehicles. Maybe it was a useful training for Star, a woman who realizes how hard she fights the medieval ailment. The disappointment and longing that Wiig speaks here is not as raw as the thirties blues of Bridesmaids, and it’s clear she’s not really spent the last decade in a modest house in Nebraska with her best friend. But there is still a sun-kissed authenticity to the day-to-day grasping of the film, as if Wiig herself is regretting that she never made her own Austin Powers or Hot Rod. Whatever her reasons for tackling this folly, she and Mumolo made an unapologetic joy.