Review #21: Pitch Perfect

Release Date: September 28th, 2012
Writer: Kay Cannon, Mickey Rapkin (Novel)
Director: Jason Moore

Logline: Beca, a freshman at Barden University, is cajoled into joining The Bellas, her school's all-girls singing group. Injecting some much needed energy into their repertoire, The Bellas take on their male rivals in a campus competition. (Source IMDb).
Music, Comedy, 112 min.
Bechdel Test: Laughably passes. Easiest pass yet. Look at all those ladies on that poster. The guy's probably wouldn't pass if they didn't talk about magic and John Mayer so much.

Review

Pitch Perfect is one of my favorite movies from this past year. It doesn't hurt that my bloggess Alyssa and I saw it in theaters with our blogsister Keels and we mega-bonded over it.

From a technical point of view, Pitch Perfect has a lot of great things going for it. It was extremely well written, with many in-depth characters, many storylines, and great characterization. Kay Cannon has a well trained sense of comedy where almost every sentimental moment is immediately undercut by a brutally funny joke. This is something that takes Pitch Perfect out of the twee-ville romanticism that it straddles into and straight up brilliant comedy. This was also one of the first movies I can remember reviewing where I don't have to say they should have edited out 30 minutes. These editors on this deserve Oscars for editing such a tight, perfectly paced story. Of course, we are talking about a movie where a bunch of girls try to win an a cappella singing competition. It’s not like it has the twists and turns of Inception. This is a straight forward a+b=c type movie. But that doesn't mean it’s all a throwaway. It’s still extremely well made, in my opinion.

Let’s just talk about this cast for a minute.

Rebel Wilson’s character, Fat Amy, would have been played really dumpy and depressing by anyone else. With Rebel's authentic Australian accent, whip smart one liners, and the girl power attitude of making her hot and with a harem of boyfriends in the pool, she became Rebel's iconic character. When people see Rebel Wilson in a movie, they want her to be Fat Amy.

Pitch Perfect also changed Anna Kendrick’s career with a single song. No, I'm not talking about "Cups". I’m talking about the 17 year old #1 hit "No Diggity". The moment she busted out Blackstreet in the trailer was the moment this became a movie worth seeing. That song changed it from being Glee: The Movie to it’s own fresh entity. This movie was going to go full prep and under cut it with some street cred.

Speaking of street cred, whoever cast Adam Devine is brilliant. Pulling someone like Adam Devine of Workaholics fame in a movie that could easily be overly preppy, and gives this film an edge. I’m crazy impressed that he sings and dances and keeps up, since this is the age of “we'll cut around that.” He’s also hysterically funny having some memorable moments sparring with Rebel.

We also need to talk about Ester Dean playing Cynthia Rose for a minute. This is the first movie she’s acted in, because by trade she’s a songwriter. Selena Gomez “Come and Get It”, Beyonce “Countdown”, Kelly Clarkson “Mr. Know It All”, Katy Perry “Firework” All Ester Dean songs. Even more impressive, she sings her own song in the movie. During the riff off Cynthia Rose and Stacie bust out “S&M” by Rihanna, except… That’s a song Ester Dean wrote for Rihanna. So yeah, she kills it. Everyone killed it.

To wrap this thing up, there's a lot I love about this film if that's not plainly obviously already. It's packed with side splitting comedy, a lot of really charming characters, and none of the songs are particularly grating. It's going down in movie history with Mean Girls and Clueless as being one of those movies that embraces our culture but represents it in a timeless way. It's an all time fav.


Portrayal of Women: Let’s also talk about the fact that even though Fat Amy makes and takes a lot of jokes about her weight and appearance, Cynthia Rose does not. Nobody else on the team does. They are women of all shapes, sizes, and appearances and they all are able to contribute equally as a team. Sure the skinny white ladies might have been up front, but it’s nice to see diversity that simply exists without having to be called out. Everyone has flaws, everyone has quirks, and thats how it should be.

Sisterhood Moment: Probably that time I cried during the finals. Shhh.


Rating: All 5 members of The Breakfest Club out of 5.



IMDb - Pitch Perfect (7.3)
Wikipedia - Pitch Perfect
Rotten Tomatoes - Pitch Perfect (81%)