| STRANGERS WITH CANDY |
 2005 – USADirector: Paul Dinello
- Reviewed by Linda
The Strangers With Candy screening at SIFF was the first one that I scrambled to buy a ticket for, and unsurprisingly, the theater was packed with fans of the cult (cancelled) Comedy Central TV show. Starring Amy Sedaris as "boozer, user and loser" Jerri Blank and modeled on Afterschool Specials, the show featured seriously wrong "moral" lessons at the end of each show. In a hilarious opening montage that illustrates what the series only hinted at, we see Jerri in prison, making eyes at hot chicks, shooting drugs, getting beat up by butches with pendulum breasts in the showers and so on. A great start. The film serves as sort of a prequel to the show: Jerri gets out of prison after 32 years and returns home to a new "mother" (dad's second wife), a teenage brother, and her own dear dad in a coma, apparently from the shock of his poor beloved Jerri turning bad and being thrown in the slammer. She decides to get him out of the coma by starting over, and being the good girl he always wanted... she'll go back to exactly where she left off: a freshman in high school! Now, one of the great things about the show and the movie is that no one blinks an eye at the thought of a 46-year-old freshman. The other kids treat her like a peer (if not a class freak), and teachers treat her like just another student. Speaking of freak, the character of Jerri is comic brilliance by herself, simply because of Amy Sedaris. Sedaris contorts herself, giving Jerri a protruding overbite, alternately blinking eyes, and sleazy/druggy bedroom eyes. Not to mention the 70's hair flip and extremely bad fashion. She is hilarious just by showing up. The nice thing about the show is that it could wrap-up in sitcom-length, and it didn't have to sustain any sort of plot until said plot was beaten to death. That is where the movie struggles. The school is participating in a district science fair, and Principal Blackman (Gregory Holliman) demands a winning team to keep funding from the hawks who are checking in on him (Alison Janney, Philip Seymour Hoffman). He hires a teacher who is a proven winner, played by earnest Matthew Broderick, much to the rage of science teacher Chuck Noblet (Stephen Colbert). Meanwhile, Noblet's not so veiled homosexual affair with art teacher Geoffrey Jellineck (Paul Dinello) breaks up, so that Geoffrey runs to the arms of the new science team. The whole episode, errr... movie ends up with the science fair showdown, full of glitter and song and dance (of course). There is a lot of funny stuff here, of course, but I was surprised how much fell flat. Director Paul Dinello said at the screening that he hadn't directed before, not even any of the television episodes, so I wonder if that is part of the reason that it clunked along. Also, there were many cameos that didn't work: Sarah Jessica Parker and Philip Seymour Hoffman were surprisingly not funny, and Janney and Broderick fared only a little better. But that said, when the lights came up, and Dinello came back for the Q&A, they roared at his return. This may not be a perfect big screen jaunt for the characters, but heck, we're just happy to see them again. |
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In full spirit of the politically and morally incorrect tone of Strangers With Candy, I'll preface this review by saying this it took me two tries to write this review. I was about halfway done with this review of the movie a couple days ago, when suddenly, in mid-sentence, I said to myself outloud (after gently placing my Corona back on its coaster), "Hmmm... I feel funny..." Less than five minutes later, I released what would be the first round of 24 hours of vomiting. Who doesn't love the stomach flu? The cats were very curious to see what I kept looking at so intently in the toilet. So, here I go again... second try!
