[yasr_overall_rating]
The general manager at a highway-side ”sports bar with curves” has her incurable optimism and faith, in her girls, her customers, and herself, tested over the course of a long, strange day.
Andrew Bujalski’s “Support the Girls” is a wannabe feminist goldmine. There are two things that surprised me about this film, one being that it wasn’t directed by a woman. Two, that it was based in a bar where the girls ran around in tight shorts and crop tops. There’s obviously nothing wrong with that and I’m not sexualizing it I was just surprised by it.
This modern-day “Coyote Ugly” takes place in Texas where Lisa (Regina Hall) works as a waitress at a restaurant called Double Whammies. They make it clear that Lisa is the manager and that she doesn’t tolerate any BS. She obviously doesn’t care how the women are dressed and expects the customers to respect the waitresses and bartenders which is definitely not the case. While hiring new ladies, she tells them that it’s a family place. However, she tries her best, despite there being an attempted robbery and one of the waitresses having been run over her abusive boyfriend with a car.
Lisa is struggling to make her rent and her boss, Cubby (James LeGros), is also trying to get her fired. She’s against the odds and Regina Hall does an amazing job at making Lisa the heroine of this comedy. Everyone seems to respect her but nobody really hears her. She goes from tears to laughter in two seconds and it’s phenomenal.
The basis of this movie is to show that women should empower each other and also not be harassed by men, which should be a given. What I expected it to be was a restaurant where the women supported each other and took on real-life issues. In reality, they made it seem like women just whine about their problems and they can’t really stand up for themselves.
Hall is surrounded by a fantastic female cast including Haley Lu Richardson, Jana Kramer, Shayna Mchale, and Brooklyn Decker. The director seems lazy in explaining life through a woman’s eyes, especially a black woman. The film lacks depth because it is not told from a woman’s point of view, just that of a bystander. The one-liners were mediocre, including “You are the wind underneath my buffalo wings.”
In theaters Friday, August 24th
