Review #17: Girl Most Likely

Release Date: July 19th, 2013
Writer: Michelle Morgan
Director: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini

Logline: A failed New York playwright awkwardly navigates the transition from Next Big Thing to Last Year's News. (Source: IMDb)
Comedy, 103min.
Bechdel Test: Passed all 3 tests.

Review

A movie like this with such universal bad reviews is going to be a bad movie. There's no getting around that. What surprised me when I watched this movie, however, is that it had potential. I presumed this would be a "talker" where everyone stands around and talks, and nothing exciting happens. Girl Most Likely suffers from the opposite problem. There are so many events, plenty of action for the characters, but they don't add up to anything. There is no plot.

There is a universal piece of screenwriting advice to not go easy on your protagonists. Writers become attached to their characters and don't want to seem them struggle, but it's far more beneficial to the story to make it difficult for them to achieve their goals. Girl Most Likely opens on a scene of young Imogene being an inconsiderate young diva, demanding the school production of The Wizard of Oz change it's ending to appeal to her undeveloped sense of logic. The writer was not exactly going easy on this character, was she? This is a case of the pendulum swinging too far. Imogene is given the worst character traits, with nothing redeeming. This character is so awful that she can't dig herself out of the hole she's in. In fact, Imogene doesn't even achieve her goals in this movie. She is too paralyzed to even try.

Part of the reason I wanted to watch this movie was the cast. After her Bridesmaids success, Kristen Wiig has become a box office draw, even though she's not the best screen actor. Annette Bening is a great actress, and her role as Zelda is killer. In fact, the whole cast is killer. The problem is, their individual roles are interesting but they just don't go together. Kristen Wiig is 40. I guess in the movie her character is supposed to be 25-30ish? She still has a room in her mom's house, she just got out of school, so she's certainly not supposed to be 40 in the script. I don't have a problem with that, in fact it's encouraging to see women playing a variety of roles. The hitch is that her love interest in the movie, Darren Criss, is most famous for playing a high schooler on Glee. There's nothing wrong with a 27 year old and a 40 year old dating, but there's something awkward about the way this movie portrays them as being the same age, and in the same position in life.

This kind of disconnection creates the foundation for the movie. Imogene is a failed playwright, something that's brought up every 20 minutes of the movie, but never once does she write anything during the movie. Never. Imogene's mother Zelda is a gambling addict, and never once is this addressed. She's the same person at the beginning as she is at the end. The goal they achieve at the end isn't something they ever strived to do during the body of the film, so it falls flat. It's sort of like a sitcom, isn't it? There was no major driving force in this movie. Characters didn't try to achieve their goals, they were trapped in the same scenario at the beginning as they were in the end. That's the very definition of a sitcom. That setup would be fine if this was a story meant to be developed over 2 seasons and 40 episodes, but the episodic nature of television isn't suited for film. When the audience leaves not having achieved anything, you better believe the ratings are going to be abysmal.

Portrayal of Women: The women in this movie are broken and have complicated relationships. They're not exactly role models, but they're not furniture either. There's not much to say about characters that don't develop. I think Kristen Wiig's natural charisma assists her characters likability, but no one is that memorable or relatable.

Sisterhood Moment: The savage 90's wardrobe. When Imogene has to stay at her Mom's house, she has no clothes with her so she spends the rest of the movie in amazing floral skirts and sundresses. It was supposed to be funny but it just made me jelly.

Rating: One sad teacher out of five Glee songs.

IMDB - Girl Most Likely (5.7)
Wikipedia - Girl Most Likely
Rotten Tomatoes - Girl Most Likely (20%)