Anybody else here feel the Girl Scouts is a racket? For a few months of year, they own the dessert market. Show me a person who can successfully avoid Girl Scout cookies and I’ll show you a stronger man than I. And, hey, why shouldn’t the Girl Scouts themselves get a piece of the action? They do all the work. Well, they and their sucker parents. Honestly, I’m not sure you can truly call yourself a parent until you’ve soliticited money on behalf of your child.
It disturbs me how easily Melissa McCarthy slides into bossy. Were this twenty years ago, I might have said she’s one of those who confuses size with importance. Now? I think this is the first question Melissa asks when she reads a script, “is my character secure or insecure with who she is?” Every character she plays is one that wrestles personal demons. In this case, the demons come in the form of parental rejection. In somber comic fashion, we see young Michelle Darnell (McCarthy) collected and rejected by a series of foster parents, always returning to the same orphanage for comic effect. The Boss is listed as comedy, but I don’t find anything particularly funny about a good-natured child being dumped back at an orphanage.
In the present day, Michelle is a cross between Donald Trump and Tony Robbins – not ashamed to flaunt her wealth and often doing so with motivational talks that better resemble hip-hop concerts – it would seem there is a fine line between entertainment and self-help. Her assistant, single mother Claire (Kristen Bell), is one of those standard dumped-on Gal Fridays. Hollywood never runs out of these guys, huh? When they have those big producer meetings in Beverly Hills, I wonder if all the multi-millionaires spend an hour or two simply studying each other’s head minion. “David, I see your #2 works 94 hours a week and lives in the hood. Tell me, do you underpay her?” “Of course! She’s the model for the
new Julia Roberts film.”
Thanks to a vengeful rival Renault (Peter Dinklage), Michelle is soon jailed for insider trading and … everybody abandons her. Everybody. Oh, this was a beautiful thought. Imagine if Donald Trump were actually jailed for one of his shitty business deals and then everybody left after he declared yet another bankruptcy. Alas, life never works like that. But in this surreality, post-prison loner Michelle must figure out how she and her impossible collection of turtlenecks must get it all back. Melissa never shows bare neck in this film. Never. And I swear she wears at least twenty different costumes.
I like Melissa McCarthy. I like the idea of Girl Scout gangs. I like the idea of Girl Scouts earning a profit from their efforts (this is the plan Michelle arrives at). I’m not sure any of this has an ounce of realism in it. My readers know I hate bullies, so I am conflicted between the upstart Melissa McCarthy mouthing off to folks and the Melissa McCarthy who brow beats life. At the end of the day with Kristen Bell’s patheticute, Tyler Labine-ry, the weird relationship with Renault and, hey, kids, there’s enough here to like if you really need to like it. I have no such need.
Larger than life this Michelle Darnell
When all of a sudden, she’s pulled into Hell
Climbing back out
Will take some clout
And a few million brownies, just swell!
Rated R, 99 Minutes
D: Ben Falcone
W: Ben Falcone, Steve Mallory
Genre: Modern bidness
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Fans of turtlenecks and Rosanne Barr
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Boys
