Quiz Lady
Awkwafina and Sandra Oh join forces in Jessica Yu’s very broad but often quite funny farce of damaged sisterhood.
Sister act: Awkwafina and Sandra Oh
If the intention of director Jessica Yu was to make a feel-good, laugh-out-loud comedy, then she has fulfilled her brief. But even as Quiz Lady frequently hits its marks, it is also toe-curlingly cheesy, crude and obvious. Had a more tempered hand been applied, the film could have been rather special. Heaven knows, there are few enough genuinely funny comedies around; even fewer that have something important to say and that connect on a human level. Jen D'Angelo’s screenplay had all the makings of one such, but is cranked up so loud that it loses its clout.
Awkwafina overdoes the shoulder-hunched loser shtick, but her character is an engaging one. From an early age, Anne Yum shut out the chaos of domestic trauma by gluing herself to the TV and in particular the long-running gameshow Can’t Stop the Quiz?, hosted by an insanely witless presenter, Terry McTeer (Will Ferrell). As Anne grows up and moves into her own condo, she takes a soul-destroying job crunching numbers in a nondescript office and, in lieu of a boyfriend, adopts a sedentary, overweight pug (Mr Linguini). She has convinced herself that she is happy, with only her cantankerous neighbour Francine (a brilliant Holland Taylor) to deal with. Anne and Francine are not that unalike. Francine has a framed photograph of Paul Reubens in her home, believing it is of her favourite actor, Alan Cumming. Anne has a doll of Terry McTeer, complete with nodding head, which dominates her otherwise spare and spotless living quarters. It’s a fragile status quo, and then two catastrophic events occur to shake up Anne’s world: the disappearance of her mother and the appearance of her sister, Jenny (Sandra Oh), the frenzied Yin to her Yang.
When we first see Jenny, it is in long shot (out-of-focus), over Anne’s shoulder. And already Sandra Oh is making her comedic stamp, running into a moving car and getting knocked down. Traffic is an ongoing problem for Jenny, and Sandra Oh displays an energy that fans of Killing Eve will be surprised to witness.
If female-driven comedies are a rarity, Asian female-driven comedies are even more so. The line, “do you have any idea how hard it is to be an Asian woman in this country?” becomes Jenny’s mantra and invariably wins the sympathy of her listeners. If Awkwafina is wasted, there is strong support from Holland Taylor (whose Francine lives next door, at #666), a smarmy know-it-all Jason Schwartzman and Will Ferrell, whose layers of stupidity peel off to reveal a real man underneath. Much of this is really funny, but the recourse to canine reaction shots is never a good sign – and Nick Urata’s score is awful. But hang on to the good bits and you may just have some pleasant memories to go away with.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Awkwafina, Sandra Oh, Jason Schwartzman, Holland Taylor, Tony Hale, Jon ‘Dumbfoundead’ Park, Will Ferrell, Paul Reubens, Jodi Hou, Choppy Guillotte.
Dir Jessica Yu, Pro Will Ferrell, Jessica Elbaum, Maggie Haskins, Itay Reiss, Jen D'Angelo, Awkwafina and Sandra Oh, Screenplay Jen D'Angelo, Ph Adrian Peng Correia, Pro Des Jeff Mann, Ed Nat Sanders and Susan Vaill, Music Nick Urata, Costumes Brenda Abbandandolo.
20th Century Studios/Gloria Sanchez Productions-Hulu/Disney+.
99 mins. USA. 2023. UK and US Rel: 3 November 2023. Cert. 15.
