Review by Pamela Zoslov
The recent untimely death of actor
James Gandolfini focused attention again on the literary qualities of
New Jersey – its music, its accents, its colorful rogues — which
were the foundation of The Sopranos. The new comedy GIRL
MOST LIKELY, a sophomore star vehicle for Kristen Wiig of
BRIDESMAIDS, dips from the same Atlantic waters. Its setting, Ocean City,
NJ, in all its tacky seaside glory, is a main character in the story
of a neurotic woman torn between her sophisticated Manhattan
aspirations and the Jersey roots that won't let go of her.
The movie certainly looks tasty.
Directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert
Pulcini, the married team behind AMERICAN SPLENDOR, it features serious
acting talent: Matt Dillon, Annette Bening, and Wiig, who deploys a
subtle, quirky verbal style that's hers alone: awkward
hesitation and an offhanded, thinking-out-loud candor that cuts. Her
scenes in Judd Apatow's KNOCKED UP,
as the TV producer who urges Katherine Heigl's character to lose
weight, are among that movie's funniest. (“We don't want you to
lose weight, we just want you to be healthy. By eating less.”).
Also, it's a movie about a woman, written by a woman, Michelle
Morgan. It appears to be just the thing for adult persons who don't
like kickboxing, explosions, car crashes or cartoons.
That's why it's
frustrating that Morgan partakes of so many predictable screen comedy
devices. The resulting film never quite hangs together or hits the
comedy mark. Among the seen-it-a-kajillion-times tropes:
Dumped By Her
Boyfriend
The heroine
must undergo a life-changing crisis in the movie's first reel. And
that, even in this day and age, always means being dumped by her
boyfriend. Wiig's character, Imogene Duncan, is a once-promising
playwright who won a prestigious fellowship but failed to write the
play that was expected of her. Instead, she moved in with upper-class snob Peter (Brian Petsos) and hobnobbed with his
literary friends, believing she was one of them. One day, Peter
announces he's moving out because Imogene really isn't up to his
standards. Devastated, Imogene goes on to suffer Standard
Humiliation Part Deux:
Fired From Her
Job
Devastated by the loss of Peter and
facing eviction from their Manhattan apartment, Imogene spends all
her time at work crying in her cubicle. There's unrealized comic
potential in her job: she writes capsule summaries of Broadway plays
for a metropolitan magazine, and gets fired because she can't keep
her sardonic personal opinions out of the blurbs. “Your job is
just to describe the play,” her irritated boss tells Imogene
before firing her. This is followed, of course, by the usual scene
of the just- fired character carrying a cardboard box of pathetic
office effects – always including a dead potted plant – into the
street and dumping it in a trash can. People, can we be a little
more creative here?
Too bad it's just a throwaway scene,
because the firing sequence reflects the reality of commercial
magazine work – cranking out insipid promotional copy and
never-ending “listings.” (I have been there, done that, have the
emotional scars to show for it.) The screenplay falters by not
expanding on its good ideas. GIRL MOST LIKELY looks
like it will be a story about a cynical girl making her difficult
way through the world. A prologue shows Imogene as a child,
rehearsing the role of Dorothy The Wizard of Oz. She
stops, questioning why her character would want to return to
a “crap farm in Kansas.” Her natural cynicism is amusing, but
instead of developing it, screenwriter Morgan plunks her
misanthropic misfit into a garden-variety comedy template.
Mom
leaves Imogene in the car while she gambles at a casino, then takes
her back home to Ocean City, where Imogene discovers that Mom is
living with a bizarre, self-important younger lover, George (Matt Dillon), who claims
to be in the CIA. Mom has also rented out her old bedroom to hunky young
boarder Lee (Darren Kriss), a Yale-educated aspiring singer. Imogene is relegated to sleeping in a makeshift bedsheet tent built by her shy, awkward younger brother, Ralph
(Christopher Fitzgerald), who's obsessed with crustaceans. A wild mix
of plot points converge, including a revelation about Imogene's
long-absent father, a Backstreet Boys tribute group, Ralph's
invention of an exoskeleton for humans, Imogene's attempt to save
face among her phony literary friends, and her ultimate creative
triumph, which is eerily similar to Laura Linney's in THE SAVAGES.
The movie is so rich in likable performers, unusual settings and
zesty ideas, it's kind of sad it isn't as funny as it should be.
At least its inadequacy is in keeping with its theme: like its
heroine, the movie most likely to succeed fails to live up to
expectations. 2 3/4 out of 4 stars.

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