Strangers With Candy
I never really got much into the television series on which this movie is based, and that may account for my distaste for the film. However, it should be said that I still really love Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert despite that body of work, so hopefully you Candy fans will appreciate this movie more.
For the uninitiated, the central character of Strangers With Candy is Jeri Blank (Sedaris), a forty-something, overbearing ex-con, ex-hooker, ex-junkie, who has decided to go back to high school to start her life over. The idea has comic potential, and comedienne Sedaris fully immerses her actually pretty self into this weird, troll-like person. The primary problem is that the show’s and movie’s chief comic premise is how weird and awful Jeri is, and in watching people’s uncomfortable responses to her. (If there is another premise or point, it has been completely lost on me.) Basically, Jeri is inappropriate, lazy, selfish, self-destructive, self-delusional, oversexed, and creepy, and she’s going to stay that way. Other borderline intolerable characters (by which I mean that if you actually knew them, you would avoid them) in television history have managed to stay themselves and still be lovable, or provide something for the other characters to respond to. Good examples include Seinfeld’s Kramer, Taxi’s Latka, and perhaps the Addams family’s Uncle Fester. Jeri creates obstacles and everyone sighs or yells at her, and nothing moves forward unless it ignores her.
Stephen Colbert stays within his highly perfected (and still amusing) type of a pure narcissistic egoist, here in the form of Jeri’s chemistry teacher. They have no specific comic relationship and he is definitely a side character, they are just two of the group’s writers. The third writer, and the movie’s director, is Paul Dinello, who plays an ambiguously motivated art teacher. We have this talented trio talking to the walls and repelling us with their main character, when clearly these folks could have used their powers for good. It’s maddening.
On top of all this, they assembled an insane supporting cast of respected names such as Alison Janney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Dan Hedaya. What are these people doing in what feels like a poorly focused student film chock full of “this will be hilarious to say” logorrhea? Principal Onyx Blackman (Greg Hollimon) seems way out of his depth in this experienced cast. All their experience does not make a whit of difference, though; they could have saved a lot of money and hired students or waiters. Catch the Network Premiere if you really want to see it.
Full disclosure: The screener DVD I received had serious video/sound synch problems throughout, which I am certain artificially inflated the student film feel. Even with your eyes closed against the uncanny valley of mismatched sight and sound, the words are still not funny.
MPAA Rating R for sexual content, language and some drug material.
Release date 6/28/06
Time in minutes 87
Director Paul Dinello
Studio Thinkfilm
