Glee has raised the bar considerably for mock-entertainment. I’m still waiting for the team dance mov – wait. Scratch that. I’m not waiting for another team dance movie. Ever. I don’t care. But this singing stuff – it has merit. Pitch Perfect is the kind of movie you love while you’re watching but strain with difficulty to remember what you loved about it. Movies with good music and bad everything-else are like that.
Pitch Perfect knows full well that Ace of Base “The Sign” is the baked potato of cover songs. And coincidentally, it is the Bellas signature song and the one they have to live down now that they blew nationals. Being a Bella means mandatory fun for all. (So long as you conform to the rules, that is.) Enter Beca (Anna Kendrick). She don’t wanna be here at Barden U. She certainly don’t wanna be a Bella. But check it out, she’s got mad skillz, yo. And we know this because we barged in on her shower (nothing to report, sorry). For a reason only known to the screenwriter, Beca shapes this invasion of privacy into a desire to become a Bella instead of calling campus police. Let me 
tell you exactly how much my barging in on a girl’s shower would have been welcomed on my campus, by girl and authorities alike – um … not much.
Naturally, Beca becomes the reBella –that bad girl who comes with attitude, spunk, snarl and a few other clichés. Yeah, I wasn’t thrilled about this story-line, either. But then Pitch Perfect made fun of itself, pointing out without shame or indifference that even the national champion all-boy a cappella Treblemakers across the quad was only important to those who cared, which aren’t many. Truth is, on any campus across the country, your 0-11 football squad would get more play than your national championship winning music group. I found this perspective key to my enjoyment of Pitch Perfect.
And the perspective is important because the standard You Got Served plot and assorted donut character list are both losing prospects … as is the idea the Bellas had trouble finding girls to audition. Yeah. OK. Where’d you look? The assorted donut screenwriting gambit always strikes me as silly; institutionalism breeds conformity. Take 20 fellas of various races & socio-economic backgrounds, put them in the same college and then put a keg in front of them and you’ll get essentially the same behavior. I think that’s what I love about a cappella music – the conformity breeds harmony not in the metaphorical sense, but in sound. Pitch Perfect has wonderful harmony. God bless the arrangement on songs like “Right Round” and “Party in the U.S.A.” among many others.
One assorted donut you cannot hide is Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson, the scene stealing roomie from Bridesmaids). I don’t know if we’re prepared to have a Rebel Wilson vehicle quite yet, but it’s increasingly difficult not to like her with perfectly timed lines like, “I’ll finish you like a cheesecake.”
Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins play tongue-in-cheek announcers (think Fred Willard in Best in Show and you’re there) for all of the rounds in the meaningless a cappella championships. Why is competition in this film? Will we not enjoy the movie without it? You already fabricated the forbidden a cappella jam or whatever it is – like a cappella groups meet clandestine-style in seedy neighborhoods to face off. If it weren’t so derivative, it would be laugh-out-loud funny, but only in the ironic sense.
Anna Kendrick continues to be pretty without being hot. And I enjoyed pitch perfect a great deal without liking it.
♪Sing, sing a song
Pick an easy crowd, one that plays beer pong
Sing until you’re a grad
Sing until it drives you half-mad
Sing, sing a song
Make it indulgent and last three minutes long
Don’t worry that it’s not good enough
For audiences full of jeer
They’re not buying tickets anyway♫
Rated PG-13,112 Minutes
D: Jason Moore
W: Kay Cannon
Genre: Competition that only matters to the people involved
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Gleeks
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The tone deaf
