Girl Gets Girl

Comedies like Girl Gets Girl are the exactly reason why the word “zany” was invented.

The protagonist of Girl Gets Girl is a serial womanizer, Ines. In the first scene, we see Ines seduce another woman while at a funeral with her girlfriend. Another of Ines’ lovers named Kirsten who Ines also owes money to also interrupts the funeral. After this event, Ines realizes she wants a change and returns to her home in Spain. She initially left because she ran out on her wedding to Monica, who was pregnant at the time. Now, ten years later, Monica and a group of queer friends are all raising her daughter named Candela. Ines happens to return on the day that Monica and her unconventional family are throwing a party to celebrate Candela’s first period. Ines’ plan is to seduce a proclaimed straight old friend named Lola. However, many of the other guests have their own agendas and affections which come to light in uniformly wacky ways.

If nothing else, Girl Gets Girl has great energy. This is not a dull movie. Describing this film only needs two adjectives, zany and wacky. Really, it’s up to the individual audience as to how obnoxious this movie gets. Because it is over the top and ridiculous. I’m not going to deny that. On the other hand, there are comedies where I can’t even figure out what’s supposed to be a joke. Girl Gets Girl is not that. There’s a lot of jokes per minute in the film. Not all of them work but at least they’re there. Especially because of the language barrier, I sometimes get lost as to what bits are jokes in foreign films. I didn’t have that problem with Girl Gets Girl.

What’s also good is that complicated though the relationships are in the film, you don’t need all the details for the comedy to work. The relationship web of the lead characters is beyond complicated. I couldn’t explain it to you nor do I remember half the character’s names. Luckily, none of the comedy hinges on this. The jokes still work even if I’m confused about what two characters’ history is.

Some of the comedy is a bit yikes, though. I do really appreciate the fact that the film had a majority of its cast be queer characters. A lot of jokes are made about queerness but don’t seem mean spirited. Because the film is so universally queer, it doesn’t feel like someone on the outside looking in and making fun. However, some of the jokes are things that made me uncomfortable. One of the characters has bulimia which is largely played for laughs because everything in the film is played for laughs. Another character tries to drug a woman’s drink. Someone else drinks it and she spends the whole movie incredibly high and coming on to a sober woman who only rebuffs her intoxicated advances for the first two acts. So I don’t love that.

Girl Gets Girl is ultimately a mixed bag. It’s a rowdy, zany comedy that throws every joke it can think of at you to see what sticks. I think where that lands on the funny/obnoxious scale is going to be an individual determination. For me personally, I respected the movie’s hustle but not enough of the jokes made me actually laugh out loud. Still, if you like a zany comedy with an abundance of queer characters, this is one to look into at least.

Overall rating: 5.0/10

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