Addicted to Fresno
Director: Jamie
Babbit
Writer: Karey
Dornetto
Starring: Judy
Greer, Natasha Lyonne, Malcolm Barrett, Aubrey Plaza, Jon Daly,
Jessica St. Clair
Rating: Four stars
out of five.
Available on demand
now, in limited release October 2.
Having selfish
people in your inner circle can be a drag. There are certainly
reasons for that self-centeredness, but that doesn't make it easy to
deal with them. But, since it's always funny when bad things happen
to people who are not you, selfish people make for great comedic
entertainment.
Such is the case in
Jamie Babbit's new film, Addicted to Fresno. Judy Greer
(Arrested Development, Jurassic World) is Shannon, a
messed up person. She is a sex addict who is not much for the
“recovering” part of recovery. She lost her job and got tagged as
an official sex offender for doing some not-safe-for-work things in
the vicinity of children. She is ruining her therapist's marriage.
And she doesn't care. It's better than doing nothing, she says. Greer
is able to make someone who seems constitutionally unable to do the
right thing into a relatable figure. Most people don't want to be
responsible, and the laziness is so tempting at every turn. Unless
they have that slight genetic variation that diminishes shame, as
Shannon does, they won't allow themselves to succumb to the
selfishness. Shannon provides an escape for the viewer, a chance to
laugh at their own lazy urges and remember why they don't (or
shouldn't) give into them.
But Shannon does
give in at every available opportunity. It presents a huge
predicament for her sister, Martha, at whose dour, beige house
Shannon must stay after her sex offense. As played by Natasha Lyonne
of Orange is the New Black, Martha is a frazzled do-gooder
looking for the best outcome for everyone. The problem is, she is
unable to make those best outcomes happen for either them or herself.
But she's present and eager to help, a reversal from Lyonne's
previous starring roles where she was detached and too cool for
school to mask pain. In Addicted to Fresno, she is wide-eyed
and overwhelmed, the type of person who will move heaven and earth to
help people when she should be worried about other things.
As in, anything not
related to trying to cover up a case of manslaughter, which is what
Shannon drags her into as the movie's plot backbone. Martha gets
Shannon a job at the hotel she works at and, with Shannon being
clinically selfish as she is, she goes off with a sleazy guy played
by comedian Jon Daly. Mishaps occur, he falls over and hits his head,
and that is that. Hijinks time.
For the thematic
heft Addicted to Fresno has, those things would be
overwhelming and dour on their own. The things that makes it a good
movie are those hijinks. They're acerbic to the bone, with heists
haphazardly planned at adult book stores and a bar mitzvah in order
to pay for a cremation of the body. Shannon lies with the skill of a
con artist, but Martha struggles to pretend with anything. They
bounce off each other in zany ways, a miserable, modern version of
Lucy and Ethel. Except instead of stuffing chocolate into their
pockets, they are woefully falling short in their attempt to make
$25,000 by selling stolen sex toys at a lesbian softball convention.
There's an almost
uplifting quality to the narrative. These people make us laugh, and
they reveal the reasons for their behavior in dribs and drabs along
the way, so we want them to succeed on one hand. On the other, there
is still a crime that was committed, no matter how goofy and
accidental. It puts the viewer in a silly bit of discomfort and it
chooses a refreshing route toward resolution. Characters don't
necessarily change for the better so much as give up and take what's
coming. It's half about accepting responsibility and half about not
having anywhere else to be.
If there is
anything to ding the movie on, it's a slightly ho-hum production
design. Everything is taupe and dreary, a fluorescent haze of
mediocrity. It may be intentional, and the movie often calls it out
as being indicative of the setting – Fresno is apparently a grim
place to exist.
The rest of the
direction is not lacking, because there are well-thought-out shots
and layered visual gags. Some shot compositions highlight the
loneliness felt by Martha by placing her in the center of the frame.
They are subtle and infrequent, but director Babbit is always
thinking about how to add to the visual storytelling, even on what is
obviously a shoestring budget.
It's primary
strength is in the interplay of the writing, characters, and acting,
though. There is no “prize” to be won at the end of the tunnel,
and Addicted to Fresno hardly expects one to be there. There
is a theoretical love interest for Shannon, but she hilariously
disregards him to attend to her own things. It's a nice refutation of
movie logic, where we want characters to get together because they're
charming and have chemistry, but nope! Martha is the one who gains
the most by the film's ending, and even that is by lessening the
burden of responsibilities in her life. It's a snarky little way to
finish things and it makes Addicted to Fresno a movie that
sticks to its guns to its great credit.
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