Here’s a drinking game for all you readers looking to get loaded tonight. Head over to Amazon Prime, start watching Robert Schwartzman‘s “The Argument” and every time a character drinks, take a shot. It’s the only way to keep up with this wild, messy, unpredictable and surprisingly enjoyable screwball comedy.
The premise plays on the notion that dinner parties with mutual friends are fraught and awkward, with a twist. The host’s argue about whether a party-ending remark was rude or tasteful, and decide to host the gathering again, replaying the night over and over until they reach an agreement. No, “The Argument” isn’t another time loop movie a’la “Groundhog Day” or this week’s “I’m Thinking of Ending Things“– no one is trapped inside a time-vortex — but it’s not far off.
Things come to a head when Jack (Dan Fogler) invites a couple friends over for cocktails. His friends aren’t the problem, but his actress girlfriend Lisa (Emma Bell), and Lisa’s co-star, Paul (Tyler James Williams), are, despite his plan to propose. Jack isn’t sure about Lisa’s loyalty, and tempers flare when Paul shows up, uninvited, with his ditzy girlfriend Trina (Cleopatra Coleman). Jack suspects Paul and Lisa are having an affair, as does his literary agent, Brett (Danny Pudi), and Brett’s wife, Sarah (Maggie Q). The six attendees cram into the living room. Lisa flirts. Paul flirts. Sarah is bored. Brett is amused. Tina pours the liquor (drink!). Jack throws a pie on the ground. He and Lisa are both so upset with how the night went, they invite everyone back the next night, to recreate things and see where it all went wrong.
For the majority of the film, it’s sharing space with people whom you usually wouldn’t have dinner with, eavesdropping on their silly spats– heightened by Jack’s 100 dollar bottle of bourbon. But the film enters meta-kooky territory when everyone shows up for the second night, which is where “The Argument” takes off. Suddenly, the dull marital drama turns into an old-fashion farce, piling on one-liners, sexual innuendos, wacky side characters and, of course, enough alcohol to keep the room, camera and audience perpetually spinning.
As to what happens, well, there are shards of satire and criticism, many meant to skewer bourgeois pettiness. Jack, for example, is a screenwriter with a house in Los Angeles; yet he spends hours talking about being poor. In a brilliant scene, he types out every word from the first night, turning the argument into “The Argument,” an absurdist play in which the parts are recast by Craigslist actors. The actors are so bad they’re hilarious. While they deliver Jack’s script with James Dean-level ferocity, the originals sit there and watch, arguing over Jack’s biased interpretation. (Jack is played by a hunk? Yeah, right).
Because “The Argument” saves its best jokes for last, it can seem uneven. The third act is so funny, so outlandishly over-the-top, everything that comes before it is no more than an afterthought.
Still, it’s rare to see a comedy so devoted to pacing and so concerned with driving to a satisfying conclusion. Schwartzman has made a full course meal about entitlement. And while the jokes don’t always land, that doesn’t make it any less satisfying when the curtain is lifted–“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” style– to reveal each dinner as more of a play, an act of sublime satire, than something to be taken seriously. We can all drink to that. [B-]
