The Heat sometimes feels like the female comedy film is still in its awkward tween phase, with occasional disconnects between writing, acting, plot, and tropes.īut to focus on its awkward tween-ness is to miss what’s really enjoyable about this film - and that has to do with how the story of a partnership between two 40-something women is different than between men. I loved the writing, but you can tell it was written for the small screen, even if it comes from a writer on one of teevee’s best shows. The movie gets put on hold at the end of the 2nd act while the two leads bond by getting drunk in a bar together (right: never seen that one before). Yet my theater had lots of people in it, and we all laughed throughout - even the 80-something couple behind me, who were unperturbed by the language, etc. The tepid reviews meant that it took me a long time to see The Heat, directed by Paul Feig ( Bridesmaids) and written by Katie Dippold ( Parks and Recreation) - so long that I was surprised to see it still in theaters after 5 weeks here, considering how quickly films get yanked these days. Oh, excuse me - I meant enlightened fat jokes. Best of all, unlike Bridesmaids, this film shows that McCarthy’s physical humor doesn’t have to descend to fat jokes. And Melissa McCarthy is just so good to watch - she shows that she can deliver a sly line as well as she can do physical humor.
Bullock plays an older, more effective, un-made-over version of her Miss Congeniality character, except she doesn’t actually seem lonely. The writing is tight and smart and (I think) will wear well with age. Taking into account that this film will win no prizes, I kind of loved it - and even better, it feels like the kind of movie I’ll keep enjoying when it makes its inevitable appearance on basic cable in 9 months or so. The Heat may not be perfect, but it dumps everything that’s objectionable about that earlier film and offers something slyly feminist while still feeling unthreatening. But after reading Susan Douglas’ Enlightened Feminism it got harder to watch, as it told women, “It’s okay not to be a feminist! It’s okay to want to be pretty and have girlfriends instead! Once you get rid of your frizzy hair and scary eyebrows, that superhot guy will like you!” Chalk it up to the appeal of Sandra Bullock, madcap writing, and the supporting cast (Michael Caine, Benjamin Bratt, and Candice Bergen as the fussy cum psychotic pageant-show director). I loved Miss Congeniality even with the secretly awful “I can be a feminist and love beauty pageants!” storyline and the makeover in which the shlubby FBI agent turns into a stone-cold babe.
0 kommentar(er)
