Lazy Susan (2020)
90 min.
Release Date: April 3, 2020 (Digital & VOD)
It should take hard work to make Sean Hayes annoying, or rather a character he’s playing, but Hayes manages it himself, co-writing the script with fellow co-stars Carrie Aizley and Darlene Hunt and playing the titular Susan O'Connell in “Lazy Susan.” This oddball indie character comedy strives to be daffy and win one over in the vein of a “Napoleon Dynamite" with touches of Todd Solondz, but the character is mostly an unlikable, uninteresting sketch creation and the comedy wears thin. Humorous in spots as the film can be, it’s mostly due to Hayes’ willingness to sell a gag for a yuk. Otherwise, it’s tiring trying to muster up any affection for the stunted Susan when one isn’t so sure if director Nick Peet and the writers even have any for her. Straining for feature-length as a rambling collection of slice-of-life moments, “Lazy Susan” frustrates rather than amuses, making itself more of a bizarre curiosity that seems as if it were made on a dare.
The one piece of novelty here is that Sean Hayes is sincerely playing a cisgender woman, not a man in drag or even a trans woman. Think John Travolta in “Hairspray” or Tyler Perry in any “Madea” movie. Unmotivated, messy and gauche, Susan has always just skated by in her life. She wakes up late and spends her late mornings designing collages. She can’t keep a job and lies about still working at a flower shop, but she doesn’t really try looking for a new one. She is always late on her rent in a small-town Wisconsin apartment community and collects cash from her blowsy mother (Margo Martindale), while being judged by her younger brother, smugly superior physician’s assistant Cameron (Kiel Kennedy), who sees his sibling as a free-loading screw-up. Susan has exactly one true friend, mother of three Corrin (Carrie Aizley), who enters them into a local radio station talent contest to showcase their ukulele and flute musical duo. When Susan gets into a fender-bender and the driver, jumpoline center owner Phil (Jim Rash), seems genuinely interested in her, it might be the first time in a long time for Susan to desire getting her groove back and turning her life around.
“Lazy Susan” essentially has one joke and keeps repeating said joke over and over. Susan is so lazy that she rides her motorized wheelchair around, even to steal magazines from all of her neighbors' mailboxes. Susan is so lazy that she just lies there when having sex. Once again, Susan is so lazy that rather than grabbing a plate to dip her French fries in ketchup she will squirt ketchup packets into her navel. While Sean Hayes is certainly working it, albeit with less energy than his own Jack McFarland on TV's "Will & Grace," and resists playing the role as John Waters-ish camp, one never forgets that Susan is just Hayes under a frumpy wig and wearing a dress. That Susan never feels like a real person becomes a fundamental problem, and to exacerbate the issue, Susan is not a compellingly written or likable protagonist to follow. She could have been both and still remained a slacker mess, but instead, Susan is ordinary, selfish, pathetic and the queen of passive-aggressiveness. What does Susan even want? We should want to wish Susan the best, but frankly, it’s hard to care or be endeared by her after she’s alienated everyone in her life.
There is a crudely unpolished, low-budget charm to “Lazy Susan,” and it comes with a highly listenable soundtrack, comprised of The Seekers’ “Georgy Girl,” Spinners’ “Lazy Susan” and Vinyl Pinups’ “Gold Rays.” Better than nothing, some scenes between Susan and Corrin have an offbeat warmth, courtesy of the endearingly funny Carrie Aizley, and there are a few sweet notes between Susan and diabetic, polio-stricken neighbor Leon (Danny Johnson). Those are the only exceptions with the talented supporting cast, which almost feels like a case of the makers calling in favors. The overqualified Margo Martindale invests some delightful sass into a one-note part she could play in her sleep as the crotchety matriarch. Allison Janney is a game player for some one-upmanship banter as Velvet, a Kmart employee and Susan’s longtime rival, but her about-face from petty jealousy to expensive compassion feels like a total script contrivance. Also, in a thankless stroke of casting, Matthew Broderick gets no more than a walk-on part as Susan’s landlord Doug. It is wonderful to see Sean Hayes getting a project off the ground and headlining it, but did it have to be the bare-minimum “Lazy Susan”?
Grade: C
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