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Tuesday, 15 August 2006 02:36 |
At the helm, Dinello finds the right note of cheesy bathos for a takeoff on after-school specials that dares to ask, "Can we change?" But even given the essential goofiness of the premise -- and the 10-minute cut since "Strangers" premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival -- the story line is thin, the execution uneven and some of the gags repetitive. Fans of the 1999-2000 series will flock to this low-budget limited release, but many will be disappointed, as will the avid audience of "The Colbert Report," accustomed to that show's nightly dose of satirical brilliance.
In garish makeup and professional golfer's hairdo, Jerri returns home after 32 years of hard knocks, in and out of prison, to pick up where she left off -- as a student at Flatpoint High. But the halls of Flatpoint are at least as cruel as lockup. On the home front, Jerri's stepmother (Deborah Rush) and half-brother (Joseph Cross) greet her with instant enmity, while her father (Dan Hedaya) lies -- and, when propped up for company, sits -- in a coma.
As bad teledrama would have it, a challenge presents itself as an opportunity to solve just about everyone's problems: the fast-approaching science fair. In order to prove that there is some learning going on at Flatpoint, principal Blackman (series regular Gregory Hollimon), who is corrupt and inefficient, desperately needs the school to win the fair in order to save his funding, threatened by two unamused members of the school board (Allison Janney, Philip Seymour Hoffman). Jerri, naturally, sees a trophy as a surefire way to inspire her daddy back into consciousness. Spurned by the popular kids, she teams with smitten Indonesian science geek (Carlo Alban) and a studious redhead (Maria Thayer) who provokes some prison-perfected extracurricular notions on Jerri's part.
Bible-thumping science teacher Chuck Noblet (Colbert) is no help to Jerri on her quest; offering a kinder, gentler but no more effective touch is the art teacher of Noblet's in-denial affections (Dinello). Deadpan turns from Janney, Hoffman and Ian Holm heighten the absurdity by way of contrast with Sedaris' intentionally over-the-top Jerri, while Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker deliver a couple of delicious characterizations -- he as a science-fair impresario who drags around his very own Boswell, she as a grief counselor whose chief tools of the trade are a timer and a tip jar.
As a sendup of teen-centered melodrama, "Strangers With Candy" is often on target, with savvy production design, costumes and music enhancing the effect. But though this film simmers with pitch-perfect observations, particularly about self-absorbed adults, it struggles to sustain the hilarity.
Director: Paul Dinello
Screenwriters: Stephen Colbert, Paul Dinello, Amy Sedaris
Producers: Mark Roberts, Lorena David, Valerie Schaer Nathanson
Executive producers: David Letterman, Rob Burnett, Fred Nigro
Director of photography: Oliver Bokelberg
Production designer: Teresa Mastropierro
Music: Marcelo Zarvos
Co-producer: Stephen Colbert
Costume designer: Victoria Farrell
Editor: Michael R. Miller
Cast:
Jerri Blank: Amy Sedaris
Chuck Noblet: Stephen Colbert
Geoffrey Jellineck: Paul Dinello
Sara Blank: Deborah Rush
Megawatti Sacarnaputri: Carlo Alban
Tammi Littlenut: Maria Thayer
Principal Onyx Blackman: Gregory Hollimon
Guy Blank: Dan Hedaya
Derrick Blank: Joseph Cross
Roger Beekman: Matthew Broderick
Dr. Putney: Ian Holm
Peggy Callas: Sarah Jessica Parker
Alice: Allison Janney
Henry: Philip Seymour Hoffman
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