Wednesday, June 3, 2020

'THE WRONG MISSY'.........A RAUNCH-COM FOR THE PANDEMIC AGE






The Wrong Missy Poster

The Wrong Missy (2020).....   
comes oozing off Adam Sandler's Happy Madison assembly line......where you know the people involved will do anything to wring a laugh out of you........

                 What makes it a tad unusual is its use of an aging, worn-out, distinctly middle-aged David Spade as its nominal romantic hero......

                   Spade seems content to settle into a strictly reactive role as he plays straight man to the film's take-no-prisoners comedic commando, Lauren Lapkus......

                    Lapkus seizes her moment with a vengeance, since the movie takes her stock rom-com minor character, the obnoxious date-from-hell and inflates it into the leading role......

                    How funny or unfunny you think this movie is entirely depends on how much of Lapkus's
frenzied shtick you can tolerate.  You'll either see her as a riotous five-alarm fire of laughs, or she'll have the same effect on you as someone dragging their fingernails across a blackboard....for 90 minutes........ 

                     It's a daring innovation for sure.......normally Lapkus's 'Missy' would show up for no more than 10 seconds in a rom-com speed dating montage, along with a parade of other repulsive, bizarre women tormenting our male lead before he finds his true love soulmake.....

                       Building a whole film around such a person.......well, that does take some big brass ones.....

David Spade and Lauren Lapkus in The Wrong Missy (2020)

                      The plot's primal enough.......Spade, who's met a classy, beautiful mature woman of his dreams, can't wait to ask her to accompany him to his company's work retreat at a plush resort. But his text invite goes instead to the loud, clumsy, all-around outrageous Missy.......

                       .........and inappropriate hilarity erupts in the resort as Missy, who's almost pure Id, goes on the rampage, leaving Spade and everyone else in the cast either goggle-eyed or deeply embarrassed...

                         Funny at all?  Will you laugh?   We'll admit it....we did, more than a few times. (Then again, we're still deeply immature at heart and might break into snickers if a PBS science documentary mentions 'Uranus'.........)

                       If the Happy Madison stuff leaves you cold and unsmiling, 'The Wrong Missy' is the wrong comedy for you.......but if you can tolerate the Lauren Lapkus one-woman three ring circus, then you might find the movie a soothing tonic to the nightmarish chaos that reigns across the country. nowadays......2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)
                         

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