Movie Review: Pitch Perfect (2012)

A bright comedy and musical, Pitch Perfect wades into the offbeat world of acapella college group rivalries.

Beca (Anna Kendrick) is a freshman at Barden University, where the all-boys Treblemakers compete with the all-girls Barden Bellas for acapella group supremacy. Beca is an aspiring DJ and only attending college to please her father, but joins the Bellas after meeting the group's leaders Aubrey (Anna Camp) and Chloe (Brittany Snow). Another freshman, an Australian who calls herself Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson), is also among the group's newcomers.

As the academic year progresses the Bellas strive to improve and qualify for the regional and national championships. But the champion Treblemakers, led by the brash Bumper (Adam DeVine), provide tough competition. Beca clashes with Aubrey over the Bellas' choice of music, and starts to catch the attention of Jesse (Skylar Astin), a Treblemaker, although the Bellas have a rule against hookups with the competition.

Shining a spotlight on a corner of campus weirdness, Pitch Perfect adapts the non-fiction book by Mickey Rapkin as an unironic celebration of quirkiness. The characters inhabiting the acapella world all know they are somewhat nerdy, but stop short of frivolous self-awareness. The collegiates take the singing and competitions seriously, and their ecosystem, like any other campus niche, is a microcosm of the growing into adulthood experience.

The smart screenplay by Kay Cannon deserves much of the credit for sufficiently rounding several of the Bellas within their acapella world while maintaining a caustic edge. Beca is a change agent, Aubrey the defender of the status-quo, while Amy is uninhibited and unfiltered. Chloe is perhaps the most complex, a peacemaker with an open mind caught between loyalty and advancement. They are all starting to accumulate life's emotional baggage, and growing into people worth knowing.

The romance elements between Beca and Jesse are more standard and relatively underdeveloped, and the film's other loose strands include Beca's relationship with her father. The darkest humour comes from the competition commentators played by Elizabeth Banks (who co-produced the film) and John Michael Higgins. They infuse their booth duties with all the overinflated seriousness of major sports coverage, laced with a large dose of politically incorrect banter.

Director Jason Moore populates the film with plenty of peripheral fun in the form of typical college residents and tensions, from the student-run radio station to dorm roommates knocking on the edges of eccentricity. Even some of the rank-and-file acapella group members pop with personality.

The music is a mix of familiar and restless, Beca's penchant for innovative mixes just waiting for an impeccable moment to burst forth. Imminently likable, Pitch Perfect hits most of the right notes.

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Movie Review: The Hustle (2019)

A con artist comedy, The Hustle offers satisfying dynamics between its two main characters and a few solid laughs.

Australian Penny Rust (Rebel Wilson) is a small time hustler, trapping men into giving her small amounts of money. When the law catches up she flees to Europe and makes her way to the French Riviera. But this is the turf of Josephine Chesterfield (Anne Hathaway), a well-established and sophisticated con artist who preys on rich vacationing men and dupes them out of expensive jewelry.

Josephine tries all she can to get rid of Penny, to no avail. Eventually the two women agree on a wager: whoever can first swindle $500,000 out of tech wiz kid Thomas Westerburg (Alex Sharp) wins, and the loser has to leave town. Both Josephine and Penny deploy all their dirty tricks to come out ahead.

A straightforward remake of 1988's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with the genders reversed, The Hustle does not try anything too new. This is essentially the same story with Hathaway and Wilson in the Michael Caine and Steve Martin roles respectively, and the real surprise is why four screenwriters are credited for what is a basic rinse and repeat adaptation.

The supporting cast is relatively weak, most of the plot points are rushed, and the movie's final third noticeably runs out of steam. But what director Chris Addison has going for him are two leading ladies in sparkling form, and what The Hustle lacks in originality it makes up for in edginess between the two women.

Rebel Wilson brings to Penny Rust a foul-mouthed street smart determination to climb the con artist ladder. Her brand of frumpy, coarse but courageous physical humour finds many of the intended fish-out-of-water targets, and in response Anne Hathaway's Josephine deploys icy steeliness cloaked in velvet to protect her turf. The two women bounce off each other to good comic effect in a sharp demonstration of opposites repelling.

The idyllic settings in the South of France are suitably postcard-worthy, the seaside playground for the rich and famous converted to a target-rich field of operations for Penny and Josephine to square off. The Hustle doesn't pack anything new in its travel bags, but nevertheless finds some fun on the glistening beach.

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Movie Review: Isn't It Romantic (2019)

A satirical romantic comedy, Isn't It Romantic tries to poke lame holes at an already self-perforated genre.

In New York City, Natalie (Rebel Wilson) grew up not believing in romance, and is particularly disdainful of the fairytale representations of love in traditional Hollywood romantic comedies. She works as an architect, allows her co-workers to take advantage of her, and is blind to interest from colleague Josh (Adam DeVine). Rich and dishy client Blake (Liam Hemsworth) does not even notice her.

Natalie tangles with a mugger, is knocked out and wakes up in an alternative rom-com reality where the city is pristine, everyone looks beautiful, her apartment is idyllic and Blake is immediately smitten. She plays along and starts a relationship with him, while Josh starts dating model Isabella (Priyanka Chopra) after a meet-cute moment. But Natalie learns that all the fluffy romance is not the answer to her problems.

Making fun of romantic comedies is just too easy, as the genre never represents itself as anything other than modern-day retellings of boy-meets-girl lightweight fairytales with the absolute promise of a happily-ever-after ending. Isn't It Romantic loudly proclaims all the genre's formulaic faults before proceeding to replicate them, as the second half in particular fizzles out into boring predictability.

Natalie's frumpy and imperfect life, seen at the start and end, offers some organic opportunities to celebrate fresh perspectives on modern single living, but the script decides to spend most of its time in the sanitized fantasy of immaculate streetscapes and handsome happy people, and simply does not offer enough of a satirical edge. And so for a long stretch Natalie is stuck in a world overloaded with cliches, as is the film.

Todd Strauss-Schulson directs with little panache, and star Rebel Wilson as Natalie is caught between mocking romance and succumbing to the imperative of finding a happy ending, satisfying no one in the process.

Isn't It Romantic desperately does not want to be what it ultimately is.

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The Movies Of Rebel Wilson

All movies starring Rebel Wilson and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Bridesmaids (2011)

What To Expect When You're Expecting (2012)

Pitch Perfect (2012)

Pain & Gain (2013)

How To Be Single (2016)

Isn't It Romantic (2019)

The Hustle (2019)

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: How To Be Single (2016)

A celebration of the ups and downs of singlehood from the female perspective, How To Be A Single does not stray far from romantic comedy conventions.

In New York City, paralegal Alice (Dakota Johnson) forces a temporary break from her boyfriend Josh (Nicholas Braun) in order to find herself. She befriends Robin (Rebel Wilson), who revels in the party lifestyle of being single. Alice's older sister Meg (Leslie Mann) is also single and dedicated to her career as a doctor. New-in-town Lucy (Alison Brie) dates obsessively in search of a husband, and meets her dates at the bar run by the dishy Tom (Anders Holm), an expert at one-night stands.

Alice quickly regrets leaving Josh, but he no longer wants her back. She eventually starts a relationship with businessman and single dad David (Damon Wayans, Jr.). Meg decides to have a baby on her own using donated sperm, but soon meets Ken (Jake Lacy) and they start to fall in love. Lucy repeatedly strikes out in her efforts to find a soulmate, and is oblivious to Tom's growing interest. Robin stays true to herself, living up a life of fun and hard partying.

An adaptation of the novel by Liz Tuccillo directed by Christian Ditter, How To Be Single only superficially tries to be different. The title and theme suggest an intent to not make the pursuit of a partner a central premise, but beneath the thin veneer, the film is a standard a rom-com: three of the four women spend the entirety of the film obsessing about men.

The exception is party animal Robin, who really is a girl who only wants to have fun, and never melts in front of the prospect of finding a soulmate. Alice, notionally the main character, quickly gets busy plotting how to enter or re-enter the lives of various men, despite opening the film by abandoning a man who adores her. She has a late-in-the-day awakening, but not before surrendering to all the cliches about women desperate to attract and please men.

At least Lucy is painfully honest about wanting get rid of her single condition as quickly as possible. Meg is the career woman who falls victim to the sudden urge to have a baby on her own, at which point a man enters her life. Her story almost belongs in a previous generation and has been told before in films like The Back-Up Plan.

How To Be Single delivers a steady stream of decent laugh, Ditter adds a few flashy directorial touches, the four actresses are likeable enough and share the screen time, ensuring limited dawdling. But ultimately, and to no one's real surprise, being single is a foundational part of yet another shallow story about the pursuit of cute couplehood.

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