Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021)

 Score: 5 / 5

What a start to 2021! If you're feeling blue from an isolated winter, fatigue from pandemic, or heavy from what we might still loosely call Oscar season, jump aboard this raucous romp through campy excess. Refreshingly silly, Barb and Star delight all the senses on their titular trip to sunny Florida where they get caught up in a terrorist plot. This is the kind of madcap nonsense that made Abbott & Costello so popular, or the delightful mess of old Elvis movies, where silliness and style smash together to create joy. It gets aggressively weird, but that's the point; you can sense the glee with which Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, the stars and writers, developed their off-the-wall ideas. "You want to toss in a musical number?" Sure. "Do you think Reba will pop in as a mermaid?" Of course. "Will Jamie Dornan let us do this to him?" Obviously.

Two nice ladies, as they would surely like to be called, Star and Barb (Starbara and Barb, just Barb) decide to go on a little trip. It's apparently their first together, though they've lived together in the Midwest since their marriages ended. And what a trip -- sunny Vista Del Mar is their resort destination, where they can put some extra fluff in their curled hair, don their culottes, and ride a banana boat. Immediately upon their arrival -- to the wrong "resort", though they are welcomed by a fabulous musical number -- they meet hunky Edgar and fall in lust. It's especially satisfying to see Dornan do his first real comedy film, after being so scary, violent, and sexy in his other movies and shows; he's still sexy here, perhaps never more so than during his shirt-tearing song among the seagulls and palm trees on the beach. Their vacation is off to a great start.

It's a particularly tough achievement for Wiig and Mumolo; comedians often make the best character actors, though it's rare for them to do so in a full movie. The broad mannerisms and lack of subtlety require endurance as well as judicious choices, so they don't dazzle too much too early and coast their way to boredom. These women are never less than delightful and manage to keep their characters, thin as they are, distinctive and eccentric and even a little surprising until the very end. It helps, too, that the film rapturously embraces post-menopausal sexuality with taste and humor without really naming it; early on, their love triangle with Edgar leads directly from a disco version of "My Heart Will Go On" to their threesome, and there isn't shame associated with it. Indeed, though a rift between the two women starts to form much later in the film, they mend it quite easily and remain solid friends throughout the thinly plotted drama.

Plot, you ask? I suppose, if you count the bizarre plot to destroy Vista Del Mar by the film's mad scientist-ish villainess, the albino woman ostracized by sunbathers for her allergic reaction to sunlight. Captioned in the film as "Dr. Lady" and played by Wiig, I think she had a name, but I don't remember it. Dr. Lady is better anyway. With the help of Edgar, who unrequitedly loves her and hopes his efforts to wipe the beach resort off the tourist maps will finally allow them to consummate their relationship, she plans to unleash killer mosquitoes from an underwater submarine, to torment her former tormentors. Though this criminal plot is the only real plotline in the film, it feels unimportant most of the time, allowing the antics of the leading women to fully control the film's structure and pacing. Which is smart, because there is never a dull moment with those two.

I've still never seen the now decade-old Bridesmaids -- I know, I know, I'm dead to the gays -- but it's definitely on my list now. If it's anything like this movie, I'll love it. There's just something infectious about the irreverent absurdism of this kind of movie, a series of elongated SNL skits, that is never less than entertaining for me. And that's from someone who doesn't like a lot of comedy. Plus, we've got Jamie Dornan as a beach babe, so there's that. But perhaps I most loved this movie as an escapist, nonsensical balm that delivered much-needed kitsch to a year mostly void of it. A movie like this, in times like these, provides comfort and joy, reminding us that it's always okay to be silly.