Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar Review: A Comedy Masterpiece Ready for Cult Status

The new comedy Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar deserves all the mainstream credits that the writer-actors Kristin Wiig and Annie Mumolo have built up after the phenomenon of Bridesmaids, then puts it to the best use of all: silly, bizarre, ecstatic jokes.

The pieces are executed with extreme confidence; if the pair prop in khaki culottes and longer than lifelong conditions, it is as if they have spent the last ten years on SNL as the two sparkling Midwesterners. But like Austin Powers or Andy Samberg’s Popster alter ego Connor4Real, Wiig and Mumolo only invented Barb and Star for one ridiculous adventure in the sun. Also like Austin Powers and Popster, that kind of daring sting often only finds recognition in the years after the flopping. We will not know if the film would have had the same box office problems in the original planned theatrical release (COVID connections send it directly to VOD services), but come on, we know. Fate makes Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar a cult movie-on-arrival just waiting to be discovered.

After losing their jobs at Jennifer’s Convertibles, best friends Barb (Mumolo) and Star (Wiig) find themselves in an existential crisis. Not only did they rely on the furniture store’s dining room equipment to host Thanksgiving dinner, but the sale of benches was theirs. purpose. The fact that they are lying about their dismissal for their friends and starting from Talking Club (‘First line of Talking Club: always tell the truth’), accelerates their depressive spiral. When a friend returns from a rejuvenating vacation in Florida, the women pick it up from Soft Rock, Nebraska to Vista Del Mar for sun, sand and possible intercourse with a man. “It smells like Red Lobster!” Barb proclaims paradise.

What Wiig and Mumolo deliver in 90 minutes can only be described as comic off-road driving. Whether it’s improvisation or the result of years in each other’s heads, the material radiates from the screen. The two actors chat in character about everything, from raccoon sleeping patterns to labia piercings and the high art of lounge singer Richard Cheese. And yet it is also all exactly; Mumolo knows exactly the right way to ‘Don Chee-adle?’ Mispronounce. and Wiig has the perfect wide-eyed look to fire back in line. When they hit the dance floor to watch a club remix of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”, the strange feelings flowed across the screen. They have created a film that is completely them, and everything from the design of the pastel production to the provocative camera work is on their strange wavelength.

Unexpected, Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar accommodate Wiig with a second role: Sharon Gordon Fisherman, a villainous albino brain with a thirst for revenge against Vista Del Mar. Assisted by her abducted child Yo-Yo (Reyn Doi) and her number two, Edgar (Jamie Dornan), who hopes to one day have “official couple” status with his boss, Sharon plans to destroy the coastal community through a spate to release killer mosquitoes. Wiig plays the evildoer as equal parts, Cate Blanchett and Willy Wonka of Johnny Depp, and holds a storm while she watches Edgar draw up her plan – or try. The accomplice finally catches the eye of Barb and Star, and while the two compete for his love, he is equally intoxicated by the prospect of true love. This is the perfect role for Dornan, whose typical Stoic persona melts away to reveal a romantic novel that will give a tune to confess his love. Yes, of course, this movie has a great beach musical number.

The absurd logic of Barb & Star make room for what I can only assume is Wiig and Mumolo’s wildest dreams – and there’s a thrill to see them live without self-control. After the success of Bridesmaids, it was never entirely clear which subjects the co-workers would fill. Wiig has become an unlikely indie darling in movies like Welcome to Me, The skeleton twins, en The diary of a teenage girl, while Hollywood hoped to join IP vehicles such as Ghostbusters. Mumolo parlay hair Bridesmaids screenplay Oscar nom in both writings (she writes down the early concepts of the Jennifer Lawrence drama Joy before David O. Russell took over and mixed it into the final product) and a series of TV works, but nothing on the scale of her blockbuster comedy. Barb & Star sees the wall of the event crumble, allowing two Groundlings veterans to enter their natural habitat. “Your dong went up completely and touched my heart” feels like a line that someone wants to deliver from day one.

Freedom leads to excess. The good kind. From spy movies to aspects of the Pringles Can Man community, Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar put it all out there, as if Wiig and Mumolo know it’s their only shot to be themselves. Fortunately, there are no rough spots for fans of shamelessly stupid humor. For viewers who are not, the whole thing can … be a tough ride. Perhaps Barb puts it best in describing her wild, bumpy banana boat ride: “It’s a real veil!”

Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar opens on February 12 on PVOD platforms.