It’s tough out there for comedy fans. As any aging comedian will tell you, it’s difficult to get theatrical laughers made, as more and more people go to theaters solely for event movies, cinematic babysitters, or buzzy horror. Making a profit on making people chuckle has become the providence of TV creators more than film ones. But the fight continues at TIFF, where several comedies, including Jesse Eisenberg’s hysterical “The Debut,” aimed for that incredible moment when a crowd of people escapes the real world for a funnier one. The three comedies in this dispatch are unlikely to set the box office on fire, but at least one does exactly what it sets out to do, while another should speak to its target audience and fans of its stars. The third? We’ll get there.
The best of the bunch is Kris Rey’s “Trash Mountain,” a deeply personal project for stand-up star Caleb Hearon, co-writing a vulnerable comedy about his struggles with family and grief after the passing of his father. Hearon is an interesting screen presence, someone who first feels too mannered for what’s obviously a Sundance-esque “family lessons” comedy, but he proves to have unexpected range. He’s clearly playing a version of himself, but that can be harder than it looks, especially when it requires this level of vulnerability.
Hearon plays Gavin, a Chicago man who lives a vibrant life as a drag show host, a reality far from the drab, semi-conservative reality of life in Missouri, where he grew up. He’s forced to return there after a call from his sister Abbi (Zooey Deschanel) reveals that their dad has died. Gavin wasn’t close with pops, and it’s clear they lived very different lives. He heads south and moves in with Abbi, her husband (Kyle Marvin), and their two kids, but he’s constantly talking about when he’s going back to Chicago. Hopefully, they can get this wrapped up before Thanksgiving.
Of course, they can’t. It turns out that not only does no one know where dad’s Social Security card is—they need it to settle the estate—but Gavin discovers the extent of his father’s hoarding. The house is a disaster, filled with empty beer bottles and a freezer with something so smelly it sends everyone reeling. “Trash Mountain” is a film about siblings processing grief and their conflicted feelings about their father while cleaning up his shit—an all-too-common reality that hasn’t really been captured on film before.
It’s also pretty charmingly funny. Jaboukie Young-White is sweet as a love interest for Gavin while Deschanel reminds one how grounded she can be in indie material. She does a lot with a little and proves to be a true supporting partner for the less-experienced Hearon. Jacki Weaver is saddled with a bit of a caricature as the grieving grandma, but she gets some of the biggest laughs. And Hearon and co-writer Ruby Caster are careful not to paint the South with too broad of a brush, including characters like Deschanel and Young-White’s to show that there can be good people in flyover country too.
I wish a movie that’s about how messy and cluttered life can be didn’t wrap up as neatly as this one, but Hearon and his collaborators have earned enough goodwill by then to make it work. So many of us have had or will have to reckon with the full scope of our relationship to our parents when they’re gone. Few are able to make this genuinely sweet of a movie about it.
There’s a personal angle to Lauren Miller Rogen’s “Babies,” too. Earlier this year, Lauren’s husband, Seth Rogen, made some headlines when he said on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” that having kids “doesn’t seem that fun.” Lauren and Seth have been married 15 years, and almost certainly have been asked when they’re having kids. Who wouldn’t want Seth Rogen as a dad, right?
“Babies” feels like a response to those conversations, and a counter to the dozens of movies that Hollywood has produced about the joy of parenting. What about the joy of not having to potty train? Although, one should note that Rogen’s endpoint is more ambitious than just “kids are messy,” and makes convincing arguments about why a loving couple wouldn’t want to bring a kid into the world beyond just the fact that AI and climate change might end it. The filmmaking can be frustrating, but the ideas here, as well as a few of the performances, should find a loyal audience of fortysomethings who haven’t really been seen on screen before. Childless married couples in fiction don’t have to be the villains.
Anna Kendrick is the lead in “Babies,” which we know because of the incessant voiceover that tracks her thoughts about the people in her life. There’s so much that works in Rogen’s script but almost none of it is in the inner monologue of Annie, which not only doesn’t sound as genuine as when two performers are allowed to riff believably in character but spells out way too many of the film’s themes as it goes along. Someone should “Blade Runner” cut this film and take most of it out.
What you would be left with is the story of Annie and Aaron (Rogen), a couple who still sometimes talk about kids but have never taken the plunge. Like a lot of people their age, they’re surrounded by the little ones spawned by their friend group. Kate Berlant and Dan Stevens play a divorcing couple with a child that Annie adores. The drama at home forces Annie and Aaron into temporary parent roles, illuminating both the joy and pain of the job.
Issa Rae plays a pregnant friend with whom Annie is trying to open an art gallery that’s to be funded by an obvious slimeball played by Ed Helms. David Strathairn pops up as Annie’s dad, forced to take care of a wife with dementia, and re-entering the dating scene. What does this have to do with having kids? It actually speaks to the script’s most impressive angle: People often think that childless couples just aren’t ready for the drama. Annie knows how to deal with tough stuff.
Clearly going for a bit of “L.A. Woody Allen” vibe with its big ensemble, “Babies” works best in its small beats: Usually a choice by someone in its undeniably talented cast. And that’s what makes the overwritten scenes and voiceover so much more frustrating. It has a habit of repeating its themes and bits instead of building on them or allowing the actors to find more dimensionality. I feel like it will be a more direct hit to couples like Lauren and Seth, which is probably the way it should be, but there’s a better version of this film that works at pulling in those of us who have to worry about carpools and college tuition, too.
Finally, there’s the atrocious “Everybody Wants to F*ck Me,” a comedy that’s supposed to be skewering male sharks in the 2020s dating pool but is actually one of the most misogynistic films in years. Taron Egerton does his absolute best to rescue this flailing script, but it truly feels like a 2000s Dane Cook project that got pulled out of the bin. With very minor variations, you could put an aging Happy Madison star like David Spade in the lead and drop this on Netflix tomorrow. And so it actually becomes depressing to see a star as talented as Egerton give his all to a movie that has nothing to give its audience.
Egerton plays Adam Samuels, a London art gallery employee who has mastered the art of the sex game. In the film’s first sequence, he picks up Mia McKenna-Bruce’s character at a bar, seduces her with talk of how much he loves “Before Sunrise,” and has sex with her. The next morning, he kicks her out with talk of his “bojangled headspace.” “Everybody Wants to F*ck Me” pretends to be about gross men, but it also posits a world in which gorgeous women are dumb enough to fall for dudes if they have a Maya Angelou book in their social profile or an Agnes Varda poster on their wall.
The gender politics get even gnarlier when Adam meets Sofia (Jessica Henwick), who takes him home, drugs him, and does something to him. Suddenly, every time Adam is alone with a woman, she throws herself at him. It could be on a train, in a hospital room, or even at home with his female dog.
As you might imagine, Jonathan Schey’s script gets pretty dark, although this is one of those films that’s nowhere near as kinky as it could have been, and, even worse, does some pretty demented shit only to the walk back from the edge at the end, leaving viewers with the feeling that this movie has nothing to say beyond: “Don’t believe in first impressions, online or in person.” It’s a movie about how shallow people can be in an online world that allows manufactured personalities. Too bad it’s equally lacking in depth.
