Role Models

All this talk about my favorite multiplex sent me scurrying over to Leominster again yeasterday afternoon to cross off another movie on my "priority-to-see" list. Role Models has been out for about a month now, and it is still hanging around most of the multiplexes. It's not as if I have to see it this week, but I have a feeling that I waited another week, I'd wind up up having to schlep sixty miles to some far-flung suburb to see it. Movies such as these---raunchy comedies---are best enjoyed without having to make any kind of special effort.

Raunchy indeed. The movie seems to prove the maxim that in order to make what should be a nice, interesting human comedy about men growing up (finally) while helping children do the same, one must absolutely gloss it with a gooey veneer of the most vulgar jokes and phrases that the screenwriter can imagine. The first ten minutes of the set-up were crammed with a steady stream of jokes and references to vaginal juices, piss, and anal sex. The raunch let up at times when the plot demanded real exposition undeadened by the gauze of filth, but it came back whenever the movie threatened to get too "real and human." In the feel-good afterglow of the climax, when all the tension is resolved, the last legal plot obstacle to the happy ending is cleared up by Jane Lynch's character, who waves off a courtroom hearing with the blythe line, spoken in front of the children and their mothers, "Don't worry about the judge. I used to suck his dick for drugs." Everyone chuckles. The end.

I have to think that this obsession with wrapping every emotion in a turd sandwich is an evanescent phenomenon of our times. What should have been an interesting story is rendered all but unwatchable to anyone but Howard Stern fans (Stern's OK, and has his place, but I'm glad I don't have to listen to him). I wonder if a decade from now, these movies will seem highly dated precisely before of the extreme in-yer-face vulgarity. I hope so.

Speaking of Jane Lynch, she is an example of a strength about this movie, in that in addition to the well-conceived and fresh storyline, it is all very well cast. Lynch has been plugging along in goofy character parts, and she probably has a long future doing the same. There is something about her that makes for good supporting comedy roles.

But holy mackerel! There's Elizabeth Banks yet again! If anyone is the workhorse actor of 2008, it is surely her. Perhaps only Catherine Keener, her castmate from The 40 Year Old Virgin can rival her for that claim. Both of them are everywhere. It would quite fitting if the Academy can find a way to reward Banks with a nomination this year, but Role Models is not the kind of movie, even as a comedy, that deserves it.