Wyatt Cenac Greta Lee
Fits and
Starts is a touching comedy with comedian Wyatt Cenac (The Daily Show). As
David Warwik in this film, he and his onscreen wife, Jennifer (Lee) are very
funny. And just as much or more
entertaining are the “artistic” presentations at her book agents’ party in
their home. We see writer/director
Laura Terrusso’s satirical take on the avant garde art world, like an opera
singer screeching out an aria, or a novelist reading an excerpt from his work
(“I am the Fiji mermaid, a fish out of water…”). These “performances” are as funny as Jennifer’s and David’s
real lives.
Everybody (on the street, in the bus, on a
train) is reading Jennifer’s book, Blind
Hearts. David makes a valiant
conscious effort to praise, support, and accommodate his wife. He defers to her in many things
(sometimes when he shouldn’t, and it works vice versa), but when others
frequently forget they’ve ever met him, don’t listen when he talks, and praises
Jennifer nonstop, his unconscious mind is taking it all in.
The two bicker on their way to a party hosted
by her agent, and some of his resentments surface. Jennifer (as is her wont) immediately takes action and
responds to his primary complaint.
This unleashes a number of unexpected, discomfiting situations that the
two will experience in the coming evening. They get separated, David goes to the party without the
support he needs, and Jennifer has to deal with being alone. A smart ploy in the film is when she
finally picks up David’s manuscript (which she never had time for before) and
reads it.
The film is a bit at war with itself in poking
fun at its main characters, policemen, and performers and attendees at
soirees. It might have been better
to maintain the focus on the couple as novelists, the situations/people they
encounter in the social world, and the ways in which they try to deal with her
success and his difficulty in getting published. Although the characterizations of the artists are comical,
it makes the flow of the film disjointed and more of a comedy show than a film
with substance.
Both Lee and Cenac are experienced actors
primarily in television. He plays
his role in a sardonic way, much as he does in his work on The Daily Show. It
fits in well with a diffident character who has to deal with his spouse
outshining him and who is socially unskilled in selling himself to agents and
PR people. Greta Lee has an Asian
look, and fits comfortably into that niche, where she plays a go-getter and
self-promoter, just the opposite of her movie husband.
Writer/director Laura Terruso (Hello, My Name is Doris) is skilled in
writing funny scenes that capture human foibles and in creating hilarious
mix-ups among people. The
encounters David has at the party when Jennifer is somewhere else are
entertaining, and show his ability to act in dramas.
Husband-wife writers have to deal with
discrepancies in their success even when the quality of their writing may be
similar.
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