{"id":15924,"date":"2021-02-12T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-12T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=15924"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:17:07","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:17:07","slug":"review-barb-star-go-to-vista-del-mar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/review-barb-star-go-to-vista-del-mar\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: <i>Barb &#038; Star Go to Vista Del Mar<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>There\u2019s a myth about film criticism that it\u2019s a serious, elitist enterprise, and that film critics want everything we see to have world-changing moral implications. While it\u2019s true that part of a critic\u2019s job is to promote great art&#8211;which includes directing viewers toward material they might not engage with otherwise&#8211;we don\u2019t think all cinema needs to be difficult to engage with. Movies are art, yes, but they should also be <em>fun<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All this is to say that <em>Barb &amp; Star Go to Vista Del Mar<\/em> is a tropical blue beacon of absurd joy that has nothing profound to say, and is all the better for it. It arrives just in time to lift viewers\u2019 spirits during an otherwise bummer of a COVID Valentine\u2019s Day weekend. Written by and starring long-time writing partners Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig (the pair also wrote 2011\u2019s <em>Bridesmaids<\/em>), <em>Barb &amp; Star<\/em> is a weirdo love letter to female friendship, middle age and culottes. Every second of it is strange and wonderful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mumolo and Wiig (respectively) are the titular gal pals, 40-something lifelong residents of Soft Rock, Nebraska, with jobs at the \u201chottest spot in town,\u201d a Jennifer Convertibles furniture showroom. When the store closes down, Barb (Mumolo) and Star (Wiig) face a mid-life crisis. They get their groove back with a vacation to Vista Del Mar, Florida, a fabled paradise where the sun always shines, everyone is friendly and the men are \u201cdressed in Tommy Bahama, head to toe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/barb-star2-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15926\" srcset=\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/barb-star2-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/barb-star2-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/barb-star2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/barb-star2.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>(Lionsgate \/ Cate Cameron)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Their beachfront joy is complicated by Edgar (Jamie Dornan), an attractive fellow hotel guest with a secret: he\u2019s a spy on a mission for a supervillain (also Wiig) who plans to wipe Vista Del Mar off the map. Star\u2019s attraction to Edgar threatens the ladies\u2019 lifelong friendship. Edgar\u2019s own romantic motivations for doing his manipulative boss\u2019 bidding are also compromised as Star helps him learn what a healthy relationship looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The format of <em>Barb &amp; Star<\/em> feels like a late 90s comedy where characters with highly specific personalities find themselves facing a high-stakes situation (think <em>Austin Powers<\/em> or <em>Superstar<\/em>). Barb and Star have <em>Fargo-<\/em>adjacent accents with personal taste to match; they sport feathery helmet haircuts in addition to their beloved Chico\u2019s culottes, and are known for their hot dog soup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/barb-star3-scaled-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15925\" srcset=\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/barb-star3-scaled-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/barb-star3-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/barb-star3-scaled-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/barb-star3-scaled-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>(Lionsgate \/ Cate Cameron)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The movie\u2019s sense of humor, however, is much more attuned to Wiig\u2019s idiosyncratic performing sensibilities, as well as The Lonely Island\u2019s style of anarchic humor. Fans of <em>Hot Rod<\/em> and <em>MacGruber<\/em> particularly will find a lot to love here, including surprise musical numbers, drugged-out club sequences set to Celine Dion, and bizarre linguistic gaffes. This is a movie in which Jamie Dornan sings a ballad titled \u201cSeagulls in the Sand\u201d on a beach, accompanied by insane balletic choreography. If that\u2019s your kind of joke, <em>Barb &amp; Star<\/em> is your kind of movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, <em>Barb &amp; Star Go to Vista Del Mar<\/em> is about its central pairing, which is clearly informed by Mumolo and Wiig\u2019s real-life partnership, and it\u2019s lovely to see these two ladies genuinely enjoy each other\u2019s company and stick together through thick and thin. The movie may poke fun at their mom-core style and relentless optimism, but it\u2019s never cynical. Midwestern ladies in their 40s deserve fun, adventure and romance as much as anyone else, and audiences deserve an oddball escape during a dreary month in the middle of a pandemic.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-heading\"><strong>A-<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;Barb &amp; Star Go to Vista Del Mar&#8221; is now available on demand.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Barb &amp; Star Go To Vista Del Mar (2021 Movie) Official Trailer \u2013 Kristen Wiig, Annie Mumolo\" width=\"760\" height=\"428\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3EBwBGTlGFQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The latest from \u2018Bridesmaids\u2019 screenwriters and co-stars Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo is an oddball delight. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":15927,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[1098],"class_list":["post-15924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-movie-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/577"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22576,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15924\/revisions\/22576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}