FEATURE:
Various Shades of Blue and Pink
IMAGE CREDIT: Lionsgate Films
Inspiring Women Directors, Writers and Actors Injecting Originality and Invention Into the Comedy Genre
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I will take a slight detour…
IN THIS PHOTO: Barbie’s (the film is out on 21st July) director and screenwriter (with Noah Baumbach), Greta Gerwig/PHOTO CREDIT: Leeor Wild/The Observer
for this feature. Whilst I am going to start off by mentioning something musical, it will then divert into comedy. This blog is mostly about music, but I do bring in other topics and themes from time to time. One of the most interesting and excellent soundtracks of the year is for the Barbie film. Lizzo, Charli XCX, and Dua Lipa are among the artists around included. There are a couple of T.B.A. artists. We have been promised something quite big in that regard. At the time of writing this (9th July), we do not know who those missing pieces are. Maybe it will be Britney Spears, but nothing has been confirmed still. Out on 21st July, the Barbie film is going to be one of the biggest box office draws of this year. I think that it will be viewed as one of the best comedies in a very long time. I want too quote from an interview by The Guardian/The Observer from today (9th July), where Barbie’s director Greta Gerwig spoke with Alex Moshakis:
“To pitch Barbie to executives, Gerwig wrote a poem so strange and “surreal” that she will not read it to me now. When I ask what it concerned, she says, “Oh, you know, the lament of Job?” before adding, “Shockingly, it does actually communicate some vibe of the movie.” Gerwig wrote Barbie with her partner, the filmmaker Noah Baumbach, though for a while she didn’t tell him she’d enlisted his help. (“He was like, ‘Did you sign us up to write a Barbie movie?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, Noah, get excited!’”) They worked on the script during the pandemic, when doubt plagued the future of the communal cinema experience. “There was this sense of wanting to make something anarchic and wild and completely bananas,” Gerwig says, “because it felt, like, ‘Well, if we ever do get to go back to cinemas again, let’s do something totally unhinged.’” The anarchy of Gerwig’s Barbie comes from “the deep isolation of the pandemic,” she says, “that feeling of being in our own little boxes, alone.”
Such are the levels of secrecy around Barbie that I was only allowed to watch the first 20 minutes of the film, which I did in a large screening room, alone but for a projectionist, a Warner Bros employee, and a man who sealed my phone in an opaque bag. Watching 20 minutes of a film is not enough to say if it is good or not, but it is enough to confirm an early vibe, which is anarchic. There is colour and artificiality, fun and chaos. There are many Barbies and many Kens. It has the atmosphere of an over-the-top gender-reveal party during which various things go wrong. Barbie’s feet become flat, not stiletto-arched. Her shower runs cold. Her breakfast burns. She develops neuroses. A once perfect-seeming life becomes not perfect.
PHOTO CREDIT: Leeor Wild/The Observer
Before filming, Gerwig organised a Barbie sleepover at Claridges, the London hotel, and invited a number of the film’s female cast: Robbie, Rae, America Fererra. The Kens were invited, but asked not to spend the night; the Barbies wore pyjamas and played games. “Honestly, it just felt like it would be the most fun way to kick everything off,” Gerwig says. “And it’s something you don’t get to do that much as an adult. Like, ‘I’m just going to go have a sleepover with my friends…’”
Behind the lens: directing Lady Bird. Photograph: Moviestore Collection/Alamy
Gerwig is known for creating open, democratic sets. And she describes part of her job as “creating an atmosphere of acceptance, no wrong answers, no judgment. It allows people to feel safe, to bring wonderfully wild things to the table, which they otherwise might not want to.” (“She’s into things arising,” the actor Jamie Demetriou, who appears in Barbie, told me.) That everyone on set bonds is important to Gerwig – hence the sleepover. Before Little Women, she asked the film’s primary cast – Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson and Eliza Scanlen – to memorise a poem, and to later recite it to each other. “These were professional actors,” Gerwig recalls, “but there was something about the fact they had to select a poem and then recite it… It was very intimate and amazing, and they were very vulnerable. It instantly felt helpful in creating that connection.” She later adds: “As a director, you have the job of dreaming up the movie, and then you have to get everyone else in the movie – hundreds of people – to have that same dream, too.”
Demetriou recalls the Barbie set being full of positivity. “A lot of the film I spent with Will Ferrell and Connor Swindells talking about how there was this magical drip-down effect from her,” he told me, “this positive vibe that everyone wanted to keep going.”
Barbie is what I wanted to use as a springing board. The comedy genre is one that has always struggled in terms of consistency. Most of the classic films are in the past. We are in a time when other genres are producing the most original and memorable concepts. There have been some good comedies released over the last few years, though nothing that stands out as a classic. This year sees at least a couple which provide hope. Barbie is one of them. Although there are dramatic elements and it is more than a straight-out comedy, its tone and ambition means that it is going to be a huge smash! I think a bigger budget and a director that has this incredible vision can make a comedy an enduring success. Barbie has that ambition and budget. That is not the only reason comedies are limited.
I think many filmmakers are repeating what is out there. Not showing enough endeavour and bravery. So many lazy comedies come out that sag the shoulders. This year has seen some truly awful comedy attempts come to the screen. This recent one is part of a growing list. In terms of the ‘failures’, it comes down to the tone being misjudged, Not being sufficient laughs or a strong enough cast. I know comedy is very hard but, in many cases, there is that potential for it to be something at least passable. More than any genre, when comedy fails or gets it wrong, it makes that massive and unmistakable dent. It is a deafening silence! Other comedies like No Hard Feelings have been getting a drubbing. Jennifer Lawrence is one of the most versatile and talented actors of her generation. She is lumbered with this misjudged and weird script that is very questionable in terms of its ethics! Playing a woman who is paid to give a teenage son a good time – essentially have sex with him -, it is quite an odd place to go to. Seemingly belonging to another time, even though No Hard Feelings has got some okay reviews, many have slammed it. One of the most divisive films of the year, it just shows that when comedies get it wrong it is incredibly noticeable! There have been many more comedies that have not stood out or had anything good to say about them.
I am not down on comedy - far from it! It is a wonderful genre that, when done right, can be amazing. I have written several times about my 1980s-set concept set in a high school that has a unique edge. A rare comedy that would need a massive spoiler, I am always frustrated I cannot get it off the ground, as objectively it would be much more interesting and funny than most comedies that have come out this year. But that is not the way the industry works! Even if you have a great idea, so too do countless other aspiring filmmakers. It is almost impossible to get your script to anyone with any pull and leverage. Regardless, something that is always in my mind, it makes me think about the successes. Barbie is going to be a terrific film that undoubtedly will get five-star reviews. I have already predicted massive things for it (three or four Oscar nominations among them). A new film that is bringing something raunchy and risqué to the plate is Joy Ride. The title implies theft and frivolity, but it clearly about a road trip that has an X-rated element. A clever title is backed up by an excellent script from Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, with superb direction from Adele Lim, it is incredible Asian women writing and directing incredible Asian women. It is almost a first in terms of a comedy film. Groundbreaking and highly regarded, its plot I will crib from Wikipedia:
“Audrey Sullivan, an adoptee with white parents, lives in White Hills, Seattle with her childhood best friend, Lolo Chen. Audrey is an overachiever who works as a lawyer at a prestigious firm, while Lolo makes sex-positive art. Promised a promotion to Partner if she can close a deal with a Chinese businessman, Audrey and Lolo take a trip to China, joined by Lolo's cousin Vanessa, nicknamed "Deadeye", who is socially awkward but obsessed with K-pop. In China, Audrey meets her college roommate and close friend Kat, who is an actress on a popular daytime show, and despite being sexually promiscuous in college, is engaged to her co-star and Christian fiance Clarence who is saving himself for marriage.
The group meet Chao, the Chinese businessman at a party, where Audrey vomits on him. Chao claims that in order for him to do business with Audrey, he must meet her birth family, whom she has never met. Lolo lies to Chao that Audrey is in close contact with them. Prior to the trip, Lolo had called Audrey's adoption agency and tracked them down. Audrey resolves to meet her birth mother and take her to Chao's party to close the deal.
The quadruple board a train to Audrey's adoption agency, where they are seated next to a drug dealer. They are forced to consume various amounts of cocaine after a train inspection — the drug dealer then steals their luggage and has them kicked off the train. Stranded in the middle of rural China, Lolo contacts former NBA star Baron Davis, who is currently playing in China. The four women injure several players in sex-related accidents the following night, causing the basketball team to refuse to drive them to their destination.
The group makes it to their destination. There, Audrey discovers that her mother is not Chinese but rather Korean. In a last ditch effort to secure the deal, one of Deadeye's online friends secures them a private jet to Seoul, but without their passports, they pretend to be a new idol group to pass the border. Lolo livestreams their idol performance on Instagram Live, only for Kat's skirt to inadvertently fall off, revealing a large devil tattoo on her vulva. They are forced to instead take a boat into mainland Korea.
Lolo's livestream inadvertently goes viral, with hundreds of millions of people seeing Kat's vagina. Chao calls Audrey to inform her that the deal is off, and then Audrey is fired from her job, while Kat is at risk of losing her television deal. The quadruple have a fight and split. Audrey learns that her birth mother has passed away and visits her grave, but meets her birth mother's husband there. Her husband shows Audrey a video recorded by her birth mother before her passing. Audrey returns to Seattle and makes up with Lolo and Deadeye.
One year later, Audrey, Lolo, Kat, and Deadeye are in Paris for a best-friends trip. Audrey started a new law firm, Lolo has begun waiting tables and selling her art, while Kat is engaged to Clarence”.
There have been X-rated comedies that are daring and push boundaries. A lot of times they can be very crude and ‘blokey’. I think the fact that this film is led by women has this empowering and fresh take. A lot funnier and more endearing than many like-minded comedies, Joy Ride is going to be the pinnacle of comedies this year – depending on what Barbie serves up perhaps. Having to answer to ridiculous criticism that it is anti-white, it is blatantly sexist and misogynistic attack that male directors and screenwriters would not get! I want to bring in one of the many wonderful reviews for Joy Ride. This is what The New York Times had to say:
“The new “Joy Ride” offers a modern-comedy bingo card with pretty much all the squares checked: mismatched besties, an oddball crashing a group outing, said outing going wildly off the rails, freewheeling sex, projectile vomiting, unhinged debauchery involving booze and drugs, and a crucial plot point hinging on an intimate body part.
This film, directed by the “Crazy Rich Asians” co-writer Adele Lim, may not reinvent the raunch-com wheel (see: “The Hangover,” “Girls Trip,” “Bridesmaids”), but it does change who’s driving the car. And, most importantly, it is really, really funny.
“Joy Ride” processes all of its familiar ingredients into a sustained, sometimes near-berserk, barrage of jokes, interspersed with epic set pieces. That is, up until the two-thirds mark, when the movie paints itself into a corner and presses the “earnest sentimentality” eject button before managing a narrow escape. It’s a small price to pay for the inspired pandemonium that precedes.
The mismatched friends here are Audrey (the brilliant Ashley Park, from “Emily in Paris”) and Lolo (a deliciously acerbic Sherry Cola), who have been best friends since childhood, when they bonded over being the only two Asian girls in their Pacific Northwest town.
IN THIS PHOTO: Adele Lim/PHOTO CREDIT: Nicholas Sutjongdro
Audrey, who was adopted from China by a white couple, grows up to become a prim, career-obsessed lawyer. She is sent to Beijing to close a deal, with a promotion hanging on her success. Since her Mandarin is practically nonexistent, she brings along the irrepressible Lolo. Completing the comic superteam are Lolo’s socially awkward cousin, Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), whose superpower is extensive K-pop knowledge, and Audrey’s college roommate Kat (Stephanie Hsu, from “Everything Everywhere All at Once”), now a screen star in China and engaged to her very hunky and very Christian co-star (Desmond Chiam).
Eventually, Audrey decides to find her birth mother, and the four women set off on an odyssey that immediately devolves into a series of mishaps. The shenanigans come at breakneck speed, and peak with a repurposing of the Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion hit “WAP” that could become a late-night-karaoke staple in its own right.
The film is especially sharp around identity and assimilation, and the screenwriters Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao have fun with the expectations and stereotypes placed on Asians and Asian Americans — including those that are self-imposed. The seams show only toward the end, when the film’s pace slackens, but even then, the cast’s chemistry and flawless timing hold steady.
As the straight arrow protagonist, Park expertly pulls off a trick similar to Kristen Wiig in “Bridesmaids”: Her character serves as the narrative engine, while also setting up comedy opportunities for the others.
If there is any justice, Park will soon be a marquee name. But this applies to all of the central quartet, who so effectively take advantage of the movie’s many opportunities to shine. With “Joy Ride,” summer has truly arrived”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Florence Pugh/PHOTO CREDIT: Peter Lux
I did want to spotlight a comedy that is a success and has taken risks. The fact that it is an Asian cast and has these inspiring women creating and acting in the film is refreshing when you look at a lot of the very boring, homogenised and uninteresting comedies that have come around. With plenty of spark and memorable moments, Joy Ride, I hope, will open the door to raunchy comedy that have heart, intelligence and, importantly, laughs (and diversity)! It succeeded where No Hard Feelings failed. There has not really been a British/American equivalent of Joy Ride. Maybe with American directors, producers and setting, I looked at Joy Ride and its central quartet and I instantly thought about something similar. I think that a British quintet that is in America and has a similar arc to Joy Ride’s heroines would succeed. In terms of cast and chemistry, I thought that Florence Pugh, Gemma Chan, Jameela Jamil, Amelia Dimoldenberg and Phoebe Waller-Bridge would make an amazing central cast. Friends escaping a life in their own country and taking a trip together in the U.S. could be an amazing comedy. With at least two of the cast (Dimoldenberg and Waller-Bridge) being comedians and comedy writers, it could be directed by an amazing female director. I think that a successful, bold and brilliant comedy like Joy Ride could turn the tide. I think, more than anything, the fact that it is led by women is a major reason for its success. I also think that this is something one can apply to Barbie. Even though actors like Ryan Gosling are in the cast, writer/director Greta Gerwig and stars like Margot Robbie (Barbie) and Issa Rae (Madam President Barbie) are in standout and vital roles.
I don’t think that it is a coincidence that two films that are standout comedies in terms of their laugh rate, visions and brilliance are from women. Ones essentially led by women. I am not against male-focused comedies, but most of the finest comedies this year have been directed by women. Take Rye Lane. A British comedy directed by Raine Allen-Miller, it has won some of the most awe-struck reviews of the year. Starring Vivian Oparah alongside David Jonsson in the lead roles, I think that Oparah and Allen-Miller could win awards for their work on Rye Lane. It is an extraordinary success at a time when there have not been a slew of great British comedies. Injecting something new, funny and heartwarming into the genre, there have been some brilliant comedy films among a mass of average, questionable or downright flat ones! Even though I am a male writer (primarily, obviously, a music journalist), the film idea I had is one I want to co-write with a female screenwriter; with a female director and a crew consisting of many brilliant women – and a teenage and adult cast with phenomenal female talent. It is always a shame that there are so many films made by women that have to face criticism and sexism. Joy Ride is not the first of last incident. Barbie goes up against Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer on 21st July. I think Greta Gerwig’s film will win the box office, awards race and audience vote when it comes to this ‘battle’ – the films are pitted together in a loving way where there is a lot of mutual respect.
I did want to use this feature to step away from music briefly. Although Barbie is going to have an amazing soundtrack including some sensational women and an as-yet-unnamed music icon (or two), there are these films coming out this year that showcases some phenomenal female talent. From the wonderful ensemble of Joy Ride and Barbie through to Rye Lane, I think that so many eyes should be on amazing women doing such incredible work. Even if a film like Cocaine Bear got a few mixed reviews, the fact that Elizabeth Banks’ direction was so awesome marks her out as a director who is going to helm some huge projects very soon. A wonderful comic actress herself, she is someone who will inspire so many women coming through. Banks is a producer on Bottoms. Due on 25th August, it also has a connection to Barbie, as Charli XCX composed the music for the film alongside Leo Birenberg. Canadian director Emma Seligman helms a film that has already won enormous plaudit. A high school sex-comedy wonderfully released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – who haven’t distributed many films like this! -, it is about two high school senior girls set up a ‘fight club’ to hook up with cheerleaders before graduation. With a screenplay by Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott, and Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Havana Rose Liu, and Kaia Gerber leading the cast, it is another wonderful and year-best comedy that is helmed and led by women!
I might expand on this concept and notion more, as I genuinely believe women are revitalising comedy at the moment. Not to discount the great male directors and screenwriters, but 2023 is showcasing some truly brilliant women who are going to produce many more phenomenal films. From great talent already out there to a theoretical cast/crew I put together – Waller-Bridge, Pugh, Chan, Jamil and Dimoldenberg -, there is this very exciting revolution happening. I wonder whether there will be any articles published that interviews and spotlight directors like Greta Gerwig, Raine Allen-Miller, Elizabeth Banks and Adele Lim with writers such as Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott and actors like Stephanie Hsu and Margot Robbie. Comedy has been rather patchy for many years now, but you can see these green shoots! From raunchy new comedies and fresh takes on old formats through to these bigger-budget successes, there are some golden comedy flicks standout out. As I said, they are largely led by women. Alongside some rather questionable, lumpen and downright lazy comedies, they are providing such a sense of hope, brilliance, laughs, heart and…
HUGE relief and release!