By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
Certainly no one knew that Amy Schumer’s ‘empowerment’ comedy “I Feel Pretty” would be released the same week that intrepid Southwest Airlines pilot Tammi Jo Shults safely landed her crippled aircraft. But timing is everything.
In the aftermath, no one asked Ms. Shults about her dress size or brand of makeup. That’s irrelevant in a world where a woman’s training, skill and intelligence are valued far above her physical appearance.
But not in insecure Renee Bennett’s world, where a woman is judged only by how she looks. So when Renee (Schumer), wearing a bra and spanx, sees herself in a full-length mirror, she’s filled with self-loathing.
Renee’s only wish is to be beautiful. Working in Chinatown in the squalid, tech-support office of a global cosmetics company (think Estee Lauder/Revlon), she’s too timid to apply for a receptionist’s job in the fancy Fifth Avenue headquarters.
Then she falls off a bike in a SoulCycle class, suffering a concussion. Suddenly, Renee is delusional, convinced that she’s not only gorgeous but irresistible to men.
Miraculously self-confident and energetic, Renee not only lands that receptionist’s job but also becomes an integral part of the company’s new Target marketing program under the aegis of CEO Avery LeClair (Michelle Williams). Plus, she brazenly picks up a boyfriend (Rory Scovel) at the dry cleaners.
Unfortunately, after that early powerhouse scene in front of the mirror, first-time directors Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, writers of “Never Been Kissed” and “How To Be Single,” deliver clunky, visually ill-timed, rom-com skits and condescending platitudes instead of plausible scenes and clever dialogue.
As for the traumatic head injury that Renee suffers not once but twice, no one seems concerned about a brain hemorrhage, certainly not the clueless SoulCycle staff.
Bottom line: the message about low self-esteem is worthwhile but its execution is muddled, squandering Amy Schumer’s exuberant talent, along with supporting players Michelle Williams, Lauren Hutton, Adrian Martinez, Busy Phillips and Aidy Bryant.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “I Feel Pretty” is a fantastical 5. It’s shallow, superficial sludge.
Audience Award Winner for Best Narrative Feature at the 2018 Palm Springs Film Festival, the charming British comedy “Finding Your Feet” is aimed at a senior citizen audience, like “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”
When snobbish, strait-laced ‘Lady’ Sandra Abbott (Imelda Staunton) discovers that her soon-to-retire husband (John Sessions) has been having an affair with her best friend, she flees from social humiliation in suburban Surrey to seek refuge with her estranged, older sister Elizabeth (Celia Imrie), known as Bif.
Showing little sympathy for Sandra’s self-absorbed moping around her cluttered East London flat, eccentric, activist Bif urges her to join a dance class at the local community center. That’s where Sandra meets Charlie (Timothy Spall), a cheery Cockney furniture restorer who lives on a houseboat, having sold his home to pay for his Alzheimer’s-addled wife’s care in a posh nursing home.
Recalling her childhood love of dancing, Sandra learns to relish this new pastime, joining other class members (Joanna Lumley, David Hayman) in a charity-related, flash mob performance in Piccadilly Circus. That leads to an invitation to perform in Rome, where a coin tossed in the Trevi Fountain leads to — all sorts of complications.
Weed-smoking, never-married Bif is a hedonistic hippie who chastises Sandra saying, “It’s one thing being scared of dying, it’s a whole other thing being scared of living.”
Formulaically scripted by Meg Leonard and Nick Moorcroft, it’s directed by Richard Loncraine (“Wimbledon”) who relies on his cast of veterans to find more in their nebulously sketched characters than was ever on the written page. And they don’t disappoint.
Graduates of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Imelda Staunton and Timothy Spall are familiar to “Harry Potter” film fans as headmistress Dolores Umbridge and nasty Peter Pettigrew aka Wormtail.
On the Granger Gauge, “Finding Your Feet” is a high-spirited 7, relying on sassy, solid performances and a stunning final shot.
In “Blockers,” three high-school girls make a pact to lose their virginity on prom night, while a trio of parents band together to stop them.
Their story begins on the first day of elementary school, when the girls become instant BFFs. Fast forward to high school, and the teenagers are still thick-as-thieves.
Julie (Kathryn Newton) is the light of her overly-clingy, single mom Lisa’s (Leslie Mann) life. Still suffering because her dad, Hunter (Ike Barinholtz), disappeared after cheating on her mom, sweet, bespectacled Sam (Gideon Adlon) suspects she’s gay. And athletic, adventurous Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan) was raised in the image of Mitchell (John Cena), her softy/jock dad.
Before prom, Julie tells Sam and Kayla that she’s planning to have sex with her longtime boyfriend Austin (Graham Phillips), so Sam and Kayle plan their own deflowering.
Problem is: when Julie leaves on prom night, she inadvertently leaves a message app running on her laptop. Lisa spies the somewhat bewildering, emoji-riddled group text that concludes with #sexpact2018 — and she’s determined to prevent Julie from making the same mistakes she did.
Springing into “helicopter” parental action, Lisa, Mitchell and Hunter anxiously embark on their own overly-protective pursuit, encountering myriad mishaps along the way.
Writer of the “Pitch Perfect” movies, Kay Cannon makes her directorial debut, working from a script by Brian and Jim Kehoe, Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Eben Russell. With that many collaborators, it’s no wonder that the concept loses emotional grounding because there’s no consistent tone.
On the Granger Gauge, “Blockers” is a sporadically bawdy 6, a sloppy, sanitized sex comedy in which the young women make their own decisions.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
