Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021)
dir. Josh Greenbaum
Rated: PG-13
image: ©2021 Lionsgate
When David Lynch mined more weirdness from his iconic television show in 2017 for Twin Peaks: The Return, David Nevins, the CEO of Showtime, where the new season aired, described it as “pure heroin David Lynch.” If you prefer your outlandish comedy to have the same level of straight, uncut weirdness, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar won’t disappoint. Barb and Star is pure heroin Kristen Wiig.
Wiig wrote the film, about two lonely midwestern women who travel to Florida for a life-changing vacation, with Annie Mumolo. The two also co-wrote the smash-hit comedy Bridesmaids, and they star as the eponymous Barb and Star in the new film. While Bridesmaids is hilarious, and has its share of outrageous moments – Maya Rudolph defecating in the street in a wedding dress, for example – it’s fairly straightforward comedy territory. Wiig and Mumolo’s off-kilter sketch-comedy sensibilities are totally unleashed in Barb and Star.
In this new picture, Wiig plays Star and Mumolo plays Barb, best friends who live in Soft Rock, Nebraska. They’ve both been through romantic trauma; Star’s husband abandoned her and Barb’s husband, Ron Quicksilver, died in a tragic rodeo accident. So, the two now live together (they sleep in the same bedroom in two matching twin beds), socialize together (their “talking club” is a highly regimented weekly gathering where their circle of friends discuss a preapproved topic), and even work together at the local Jennifer Convertibles furniture store (when one is on the schedule and the other is not, they’ll both go in, so they can chit-chat during the shift).
The pair are crestfallen when their boss (a good, but mostly wasted Ian Gomez) tells them that the store is closing and they are losing their jobs. On their way out, they run into a friend who tells them she just got back from a transformational vacation in Vista Del Mar, Florida. The experience was like getting a “soul douche,” she tells them. With no jobs or prospects, Barb and Star decide to leave Soft Rock for the first time, and head to sunny Vista Del Mar.
Meanwhile, in a Bond villain-style underground lair, the nefarious Sharon Gordon Fisherman – who is also played by Wiig in white pancake-makeup, a black wig, and simply fabulous dresses – plots her revenge against Vista Del Mar, the town that humiliated her as a child. All credit to Wiig for her portrayal as the evil Sharon, but I also felt the hand of producers Will Ferrell and Adam McKay here. Fisherman feels like the relative of one of Ferrell’s more bizarre villainous creations, Zoolander’s Jacobim Mugatu.
Sharon sends Edgar, the boy-toy she’s been stringing along, to the beach town to put her diabolical plan, involving killer mosquitos, in motion. Jamie Dornan, who played Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades franchise, shows some well-honed comedic chops and holds his own during the shenanigans as Edgar.
I have to imagine Wiig and Mumolo were ecstatic when they landed Dornan for their movie. The kind of women Barb and Star is sending up are exactly the women who made the Fifty Shades books, and subsequent film adaptations, into a cultural phenomenon.
The classic Saturday Night Live sketch “Mom Jeans” was before Wiig’s time on the show – she was a cast member from ’05-’12; “Mom Jeans” aired in 2003 – and Barb and Star are both childless, but their hair (hair-sprayed and blow-dried to within an inch of its life) and uber-flat, exaggerated Midwesterner accents scream Mom Jean aesthetic. The picture opens with text defining culottes, and the pant style – popular with women of a certain age – play the most ridiculous role you could imagine in the movie’s climax.
I was worried at the beginning of the movie that Barb and Star would be the opposite of a movie like Fargo. That film also uses the Midwestern accent as a source for guffaws, but never heartlessly. Frances McDormand’s iconic performance as Marge Gunderson in Fargo centers the character as someone who we care about deeply. That’s mostly the case with Barb and Star, as well. The wildly broad comedy doesn’t have the emotional core of something like Fargo, and Wiig and Mumolo are taking the piss out of middle-aged Midwestern women, but it’s never mean-spirited. Barb and Star are endearing and absolutely loveable, and by the end of the movie I wanted nothing but happiness for them both.
The movie really crackles when it dives into complete surrealist and absurdist territory, which it does for damn near every minute of its runtime. The love triangle that develops between Barb, Star, and Edgar gives rise to two date scenes between each woman and Edgar. They both play out exactly the same, down to the background extras making identical movements in each sequence. There’s also a talking crab that sounds exactly like Morgan Freeman – he’s named Morgan Freemond – and he delivers his soliloquy with a cue from the Shawshank Redemption soundtrack as the background score. I almost couldn’t hear it over my own raucous laughter.
Another inspired moment revolves around Wiig, Mumolo, and Dornan’s eyes moving from side to side when the three of them wake up on top of each other after a drug-fueled night of debauchery. Along with the simpler gags, director Josh Greenbaum stages some complicated effects shots in the movie’s final minutes to maximum comedic effect in Barb and Star.
At its heart, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is about confronting your fears and getting out of your comfort zone. You can only eat so much hot dog soup, after all. Wiig and Mumolo take their characters – and their audience – on a wild ride. The jokes come fast and at least a quarter of them were probably the result of Wiig and Mumolo trying to out-weird each other. Bless them both. I haven’t laughed harder at a movie all year.
Why it got 4 stars:
- Barb and Star is a silly and hilarious breath of fresh air. It’s the number one “forget your troubles for two hours” movie of 2021.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- The opening sequence to the movie, where Sharon Gordon Fisherman’s adopted son, Yoyo, delivers papers on his bike while lip-synching to the Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb softsational track Guilty, is priceless.
- The incomparable Fortune Feimster pops up for a few minutes as a member of Barb and Star’s Talking Club. I really wish she had more to do, but I’ll take what I can get! The Office’s (and more importantly The OA’s) Phyllis Smith turns up in the gals’ club, too.
- As Yoyo pilots a submarine as part of Sharon’s plan, Wiig delivers a hilarious send-up of movie driving. Sharon tells Yoyo, “Don’t keep the steering wheel too straight; lots of tiny movements back and forth.” Ha!
- Trish!
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
- Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is now available to rent and buy on most streaming platforms. I rented it via Amazon for six bucks. I rented the HDR version, and I noticed something odd while watching it. The screen repeatedly adjusted the contrast of the picture (getting brighter and darker) depending on the lighting of each scene. I know there has to be something screwy going on, but I can’t figure out how to adjust the setting on my TV, if that’s even possible. It only happens when I’m watching an HDR stream. Any ideas? I’d love some advice on this.