Girl's Trip (2017)

Grapefruit (This took longer than I'd care to admit to draw)

I'm a fan of comedies, but I get tired of the same old formulaic dross that Hollywood puts on the fast track and expects me to shell out hard-earned money for. And that's the problem with comedy: it IS highly formulaic. And that formula exists for a reason: often it is solid, it works, and it's easy to replicate. Great comedies put a new spin on that formula, though. Great comedies come along every once and a while and offer some new commentary on that formula. I don't know that Girl's Trip  is a great comedy, but it is a nice enough disruption on the by now tried-and-true hard-R comedy to have given me an afternoon's delight.

Summary:

A group of college friends, The Flossy Posse, reunite after years apart for a wild weekend in New Orleans. Each woman comes with her own baggage, and, before the weekend is over, they will feel young again, feel old again, and face the differences that tore them apart in the first place.

Pros:

Chemistry: You can't fake chemistry. You can't pay for it. You can't hide its lack behind fancy CGI. Girl's Trip, luckily, is dripping with chemistry: the Flossy Posse looks and acts like a real group of friends. Tiffany Haddish bursts onto the scene as the eccentric, but lovable, Dina, Jada Pinkett Smith cuts loose as the matronly Lisa, Queen Latifah shows why she's an original queen of female comedy as Sasha, and Regina Hall anchors the crew as the "new Oprah," Ryan. Each woman has an archetypical role (The Bacchanal, The Matron, The Estranged Best Friend, and the Straight Woman), but they manage to bounce off of each other in genuine, hilarious ways. If a movie can be judged solely on the strength of its cast, Girl's Trip knocks it out of the park.

Goofy White Friend: Kate Walsh does the Lord's work as Ryan's goofy manager, Elizabeth Davelli. She has some serious comedic chops, commits to the inherent absurdity of her character, and lights up the screen any time she's on it.

Being That Couple: Comedies get a bad rap because, so often, they aim at low-hanging fruit: off-color jokes, silly bits, and schmaltzy messages make comedies toothless. Girl's Trip  explores easy themes of friendship and growing old, but tackles, head on, the difficulty of setting aside one's own hopes and dreams for success. Ryan is stuck in a truly shitty marriage. One she talks herself into staying in by referring to it as a "partnership." This allows her husband to cheat, sweet-talk her, and genuinely treat her like trash. We are in a moment, right now, where messages like this need to be explored. I won't say that Girl's Trip does so with greater nuance than has ever been seen before, but that it tries is praise worthy in and of itself.

Turning the Tables: It's a curious thing, to notice how defined by gender most comedy has always been, when one sees a film turn expectations on their head. Women aren't supposed to act this way. Women aren't foul. Women don't go on benders and have sex with random men. At least society tries to tell us that they don't. It is refreshing to see a film present a group of women go out and do things that only "men are allowed to do." Even if those things are getting wildly, inappropriately drunk, pissing on a crowded street, and jacking off a man with a grapefruit. If you thought The Hangover was hilarious, but find this film distasteful, you just might be a fucking hypocrite. It is especially strange, and kind of empowering, to see men utilized in this film the way women are traditionally utilized in male-driven (read: ALL MAINSTREAM) comedy: as sex objects. The men in this film are one-note hunks of meat. And guess what? That's how female characters often get treated in comedies. If that offends you here, but not in every other successful comedy in the last ten years, again, you might be a hypocrite.

Dance Fight: The movie doesn't seem to ever have as much fun or vitality as it does when the Flossy Posse dance fights a group of hussies in a seedy New Orleans bar. It's new school meets old school, and our ladies are out there rocking it in multicolored wigs and dark shades. Even this thirty-one-year-old white dude was having a blast sitting on his couch, eating day-old pasta.

The Grapefruit The film sets up a bit, early on, where Haddish's Dina gives her friends some advice on how to please a man: stick his dick in the innards of a grapefruit. She illustrates, graphically, with a grapefruit and a banana. She commits to this bit in admirably disgusting fashion. And then, later, the film pays this off. Gloriously: "I THOUGHT YOU WERE A NURSE!"

Cons:

Too Long: There's a reason most comedies clock in at, or around, 90 minutes: comedy doesn't like to overstay its welcome. Any longer than a solid hour-and-a-half and the audience starts to shuffle their feet. One of Girl's Trip's greatest sins is that it runs a touch over two hours: especially given that the infertility wrinkle feels tacked on and out-of-left-field. This film could have lost 10-15 minutes, easily, if not an entire half hour. It would have been leaner, and meaner for it.

Shitty Music: A great soundtrack is, by its very nature, a manipulative affair. Music cues the audience's emotions. When done correctly, an audience member feels immersed in the film they are watching. When done poorly, it feels like a soundtrack is bullying you into feeling what the film demands. Girl's Trip has a cheesy, bullying score.

In Conclusion:

I liked this movie. It was fun. And funny. And it should put to rest the persistent rumor that "women aren't funny." Shut the fuck up with that. This was a film that came around and succeeded at the box office on its own merits. Would I see a sequel? Yeah, probably I would.

Should You Watch It?

If you like raunchy comedies, this one is a decent addition to the canon.

Miscellany:

- The film's budget was 19 million dollars. It's total box office take was 115 million. That is an unqualified success. 

- This is the first film to be written by, produced by, and starring African Americans to cross the 100 million dollar mark at the box office. Girl's Trip was Black Panther before Black Panther Black Panthered.
- This film's budget, 19 million dollars, is, reportedly, what Will Smith makes on a per-movie basis. Holee shit.