From the beginning this has the feel of a film version of a one-woman show. Donna is a stand up and we open with her act. She's not just funny, but intelligent and complex. It makes us feel that we are going to get this combination from the film itself. The opening scenes are brilliantly nuanced, well acted, raw, fresh and engaging.
As the film progresses, however, the film does seem to wuss out of its own premise. When she reveals she is getting an abortion to her mother, who was previously cold and judgmental about her life, she suddenly becomes ridiculously cool, and her father is just cool from the beginning. All her friends are cool also. Just cool. The main potential source of tension, then, is with the guy who knocked her up. But he is also...relatively cool, even as she announces the pregnancy/impending abortion to him as part of her act (though he does walk out, he turns up next day with flowers). She had previously been dumped, in part, for bringing those in her life into her raw stand up routine, so this seems like another plot strand which is undeveloped, along with the closure of the book shop where she works and her impending poverty.
This film would have been so much more than a one woman show, had the other characters, and potential conflicts, been explored much more strongly. The love interest, in particular, seems one dimensional, and just wrong for the protagonist, who would surely need someone much less bland.
That said, there is a lot to enjoy in this. Jenny Slate, Gabby Hoffman and Gabe Liedman are terrific, they make you wish you could hang out with them. And, unlike a lot of other comedies this year, it doesn't try too hard to be funny with one liners and set pieces. It just is funny, and, in its best scenes, very charming.
As the film progresses, however, the film does seem to wuss out of its own premise. When she reveals she is getting an abortion to her mother, who was previously cold and judgmental about her life, she suddenly becomes ridiculously cool, and her father is just cool from the beginning. All her friends are cool also. Just cool. The main potential source of tension, then, is with the guy who knocked her up. But he is also...relatively cool, even as she announces the pregnancy/impending abortion to him as part of her act (though he does walk out, he turns up next day with flowers). She had previously been dumped, in part, for bringing those in her life into her raw stand up routine, so this seems like another plot strand which is undeveloped, along with the closure of the book shop where she works and her impending poverty.
This film would have been so much more than a one woman show, had the other characters, and potential conflicts, been explored much more strongly. The love interest, in particular, seems one dimensional, and just wrong for the protagonist, who would surely need someone much less bland.
That said, there is a lot to enjoy in this. Jenny Slate, Gabby Hoffman and Gabe Liedman are terrific, they make you wish you could hang out with them. And, unlike a lot of other comedies this year, it doesn't try too hard to be funny with one liners and set pieces. It just is funny, and, in its best scenes, very charming.