If America currently howls in psychic pain, broken and divided, suffering from various emotional, spiritual, political crises, hemorrhaging each day in existential agony from the soul-crushingly bleak, relentlessly interminable horror that is life during a pandemic and the failure of leadership to see us through it, let me submit to you that American comedy is also lost and in deep crisis. Without a collective audience to conjure the contagiousness of enjoyable, transmissible theatrical laughter, without instantaneous stand-up reaction and feedback loop to tell comedians what’s funny, without much direction or togetherness, humorists are left to their own insulated devices, their own peculiar observations, and their idiosyncratic penchant for what they find amusing. This phenom could yield some impressive, eccentric results, but in the case of “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar”— something of an oddity gone horribly wrong— it’s almost the opposite. There’s a confidence, and courage of comedic conviction that’s admirable on the surface, it but borders on the wildly presumptuous in practice. And if we still don’t yet know the long-term effects of COVID-19 on the lungs and the body and the consequences that prolonged quarantine and isolation will have on the psyche—to tie our crisis together thematically— I would counter that we still don’t know the lasting impact ‘Barb and Star’ will have on the human brain.
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An unfortunate collision between a typically never-ending “Saturday Night Live” skit—Oh gee, shucks, Marge, Midwestern Moms droning on about various, tedious “neato” monotonies — one of the lesser Will Ferrell/Gary Sanchez comedies grafted onto the setting of the inherent tackiness of for-seniors holiday resorts in Florida—and an outlandish “Austin Powers” spy element, the aggressively unfunny ‘Barb and Star’ is a ceaselessly nonsensical and life-draining. Yet, you’ll probably not see a movie, this busy, this hard-working and hectic, all year. ‘Barb and Star’ is breaking a sweat from the get-go, going the extra mile in every scene to edge out a joke. And A for effort, to be sure, unfortunately, given that very little of it is funny, the frantic and chaotic energy of each scene just grows endless.
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Written and conceived by the usually hilarious and charming team that brought you “Bridesmaids”— Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, who co-star, co-write and co-produce this effort—‘Barb & Star’’ is built on the premise that if you enjoy the banality of Chatty Cathy middle-age Midwestern White Women, you will love this comedy. And to be fair, to their credit, Wiig and Mumolo, go for broke and all in on this founding principle. But if you find the proposition to be a typically thin, mediocre, unfunny SNL skit stretched out to 105 minutes, you’ll probably find the entire endeavor tortuous. Worse, ‘Go To Vista Del Mar’ is also founded on the idea that the kitschy tastelessness of Jimmy Buffet and the soullessness of relax-resort culture in the paradise getaway of Florida Southwestern Florida is also intrinsically absurd. And yes, well, actually, it kind of is, but ‘Barb & Star’ decides to do the bare minimum with the concept other than to expect the audience to find the setting and ridiculous vacation-as-life culture innately comical.
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The paper-thin, but also convoluted, premise centers on the Midwestern BFFs, ‘Barb & Star,’ whose uninteresting lives are suddenly altered when they lose their jobs and—on the behest of one of their reinvigorated friends (Wendi McLendon-Covey) who got a “soul douche” in Florida—decide to go on an adventure to the magical land of Vista Del Mar. Things get extra and intricate, with the entirely unnecessary and elaborate James Bond villain subplot. Because, you see, Wiig also plays Maria Margolis, the Dr. No-esque antagonist of the film who has a lifelong grudge against Vista Del Mar because of some horrible childhood experiences. She is also concurrently on a hellbent mission to destroy the resort town and send genetically modified killer mosquitoes to this town. This odd, incongruous narrative choice, introduces Edgar Paget (Jamie Dornan), to the plot, the Margolis’ faithful henchman who is also deeply in love with her.
Hijinx, hilarity, heartbreak, and silly mix-ups and misunderstandings are supposed to ensue in a story meant to be about friendship, taking risks, escapes from reality, and breaking out your comfort zones. Unfortunately, while the living life to its fullest ideas are meant to lampoon the humor in Shania Twain-esque, you-go-girl empowerment, it mostly just laughs at it briefly; it’s too sincere a movie to not ultimately embrace them. And the spy plot is pointless and predictable. Worse, once ‘Barb & Star,’ gets to Florida, it seems to roofie itself, and the film keeps growing, weirder, stranger, and then just unrecognizably bonkers.
Talking crabs (Morgan Freeman), evil villains, a seafood jam, shrimp queen beauty contest, killer crocodiles, and life-saving culottes all make for a deeply eccentric film and extremely specific, and yet, not at all funny or enjoyable. By the time the last act has finally appeared, the movie has turned into an incompressible cocktail cacophony of nonsense—and of course, one that banks on the belief that anything that’s wild, bonkers, and batshit crazy is inherently entertaining (reader, it’s not). If you’re looking for the heart, soul, poignance, and wit that made “Bridesmaids,” such a hit, you have literally come to the opposite place, because these are jokes adrift and grounded in mostly one-note randomness.
Directed by Josh Greenbaum (“New Girl,” “Fresh Off the Boat”) with a lot of Thursday nights on ABC, this-could-really-use-a-laugh-track energy, ‘Barb & Star,’ doesn’t have a lot going for it aside from the self-assuredness of its creators (Wiig and Mumolo) and the in-joke concept that is the entire movie. They bet big on themselves (again, admirable), assuming you’ll adore its unrelenting nature and not resent the character’s indefatigable enthusiasm, their unwavering obliviousness, and naiveté, the insistent spirit of the film’s escalating absurdism. If you enjoy Kristen Wiig (and by proxy, her partner Mumolo) in silly, perm windproof hairdos, tacky mom clothes—culottes, basically, get their own subplot in this movie—and unyielding Midwestern-accent-flecked back-and-forth chitty chatty earnest conversations about Costco, 24-hour CVS’, Tommy Bahama outdoor wear, hot dog soup, character socks, and the likes, you will probably love this movie, they presume. But if you don’t buy into the movie from the jump, it’s just a long, tedious slog to the end.
Now, the domain of absurdist, insane, Will Ferrell-esque comedy should not be the exclusive province of White men, Will Ferrell and his friends. Thus in 2015, Jessica Elbaum launched Gloria Sanchez Productions, an offshoot of Ferrell and Adam McKay’s Gary Sanchez Productions, for the express purposes (it seems) to give White Women a chance to play in a similar sandbox of ludicrous preposterousness. So, “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar,” is a similar Will Ferrell-esque wackadoodle comedy, mixed with the aforementioned peculiarities and the clownish shelf life of a half-baked ‘SNL’ skit, but that doesn’t mean it’s good, or not inherently intolerable. Look, America certainly needs relief, support, escape, and laughter, yes, but good god, ‘Barb & Star’ is not it. [D+]
