Lauren Lapkus

  • The Wrong Missy (2020)

    The Wrong Missy (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, December 2021) In making a romantic comedy film centred around an obnoxious character, there’s a tricky balance between irritation and, for lack of a better word, redemption: how far can you push the actions of a character before making them completely unlikable for the rest of the film? Part of it has to do with skillful screenwriting and the other has to do with competent casting. A good actor can make the best even out of standard material written by mediocre craftsmen. So given that The Wrong Missy has to do with a middle-aged businessman (David Spade, looking his age) on a Hawaiian holiday getting swept up with a hyperactive woman with poor understanding of consent and boundaries, well, you have to get a strong actress in that part. Fortunately, the film had the good luck of stumbling on Lauren Lapkus — someone with a proven track record of making the best out of poor material (in Watson and Holmes, namely). In her hands, the “wrong” Missy keeps a thin edge of likability even through the worst possible actions of the film’s first two acts, even when bluntly handled by director Tyler Spindel and the rest of the Happy Madison production crew. This is really not a sophisticated film: the humour is crude, scatological and borderline repulsive. (Those consent issues? Yeah — a gender-flipped take on the same story would be incendiary.)  But Lapkus owns The Wrong Missy’s best moments and makes the worst tolerable until the third act gets down to more conventional likability. That’s not much of a recommendation, but it’s more than the film would have deserved with a lesser lead actress.

  • Holmes & Watson (2018)

    Holmes & Watson (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2019) The first few minutes of Holmes & Watson set a dismal tone for a comedy: they’re not only free of smiles, but they quickly create dread in audiences’ minds: as extended comic set-pieces fall flat, we come to fear what comes next. Will Ferrell is back to his obnoxious man-child persona, while John C. Reilly seems there only to make us recall the other movies in which he co-starred. Amazingly enough, this Homes & Watson not only comes out a decade after the source it’s parodying (Guy Richie’s Sherlock Holmes series), but is substantially less funny than its inspiration. Half an hour in the film, though, things improve a bit. Just as I was despairing at Rebecca Hall’s inclusion in the cast (she’s one of the rare actresses specializing in brainy characters, explaining my crush on her), she actually marks a modest turning point in the film’s effectiveness. Her character exists in a dignified realm outside the parameters of the rest of the film (she also gets a few shots at the current American “president”), and she comes accompanied by Lauren Lapkus, who wordlessly steals most of her scenes through weird facial expressions and cat mimicry. Both belong in a better movie. Let’s be clear: Holmes & Watson never becomes a good film, but it does settle for a less irritating rhythm, with a few chuckles here and there. Still, it’s not much by itself, and it’s a sad waste of talent to see Ralph Fiennes wasted as a potentially great Moriarty, Kelly Macdonald (who does manage some of the film’s few chuckles), Steve Coogan and an uncredited Hugh Laurie simply given bad material to play. Some still manage to make the most of what they’re given, but the film around them is a prodigious misfire, handled by people who simply can’t write, stage, direct or edit a simple joke. Holmes & Watson simply feels dated, and not in the Golden-Hollywood-movies-seen-decades-later kind of way: it’s built around dumb jokes about topics already beaten into the ground (selfies?), parodying material that already does a good job of poking fun at itself, and depending on comedy trends (i.e.: Will Ferrell) that were annoying even when they were popular, and now haven’t been popular in a while. It simply doesn’t work, even when it eventually works its way to mere mediocrity.  Those calling Holmes & Watson a terrible movie clearly should see more made-for-cable atrocities, but they’re right in pointing out that you seldom see such failure from a big studio released in thousands of theatres.