"Barb & Star" an unabashedly silly delight that'll have you grinning from ear to ear

Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021)


“Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” feels like a bit Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo might have giggled about in between drafts of writing 2011’s “Bridesmaids” before stretching it into a script for a feature. That might be close enough to the truth, but at least it’s a very funny—and wonderfully, unabashedly silly—feature film. Directed by Josh Greenbaum (who’s known more for documentaries), the film floats or sinks on an all-in Mumolo and Wiig as the titular Barb and Star, bopping along to a flighty, very specific absurdist energy. Everyone could use time spent with Barb and Star in their lives, and you don’t need to wear culottes to find “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” comically inspired and infectious.


So, just who are Barb and Star? They are a couple of chatty, perpetually chipper middle-aged best friends living together in the Nebraskan suburbs. Barb’s husband may have died and Star’s husband may have left her, but their friendship together is as strong as their hairdos held together by Aqua Net. Soon after they’re not ready to sell their “talking couch” at the furniture department store they also work at, Barb and Star are let go from their dream jobs due to the store closing. Once they are also banned from their “talking club” (headed by Vanessa Bayer), the girls decide to throw caution to the wind and pack their culottes: they’re going to Florida oasis Vista Del Mar! There, they hope to get their “shimmer” back and make new memories, like riding a banana boat and possibly meeting Tommy Bahama. 


Somehow, “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” gets a lot of mileage out of a single joke, but it is the bizarre, anything-goes nature of the humor underneath an outward buoyancy that puts it over the top. The plot proper is go-for-broke nonsense, but intentionally so and a hoot just the same. Unbeknownst to these clueless mid-lifers, the white-pigmented, evil-from-unpopularity Dr. Sharon Gordon Fisherman/Dr. Lady (a cloned Wiig) sets a revenge scheme in motion. While Sharon remains out of the sun in her underground lair with newspaper boy Yoyo (Reyn Doi), she sends lovelorn henchman Edgar (Jamie Dornan) to Vista Del Mar to plant a receiver that will attract murderous, genetically enhanced mosquitoes and kill everyone at the local Seafood Jam. Sounds sensible, right?


Willing to do anything ridiculous to earn a giggle and absolutely glowing at the chance to work together on-screen, Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig make an undeniably endearing pair. They are consistently on the same sweetly kooky wavelength that one can just imagine the one-thousand-plus takes they probably had while shooting. Affection for these dippy characters is immediately there, shining through Barb and Star’s airplane flight-long conversations about their favorite name being Trish (this will matter later). Much like Mumolo and Wiig’s own friendship, Barb and Star’s affection and platonic love for one another is also evident, as they never want to hurt each other’s feelings. Wiig also doubles her screen time, hilarious and relishing every fun minute an albino villainess who would fit right in as Dr. Evil’s plus-one to go up against Austin Powers.

In a rare comedic role, Jamie Dornan (2020’s
“Synchronic”) joins the ranks of Chris “I’m hunky but also funny” Hemsworth playing a himbo. As Edgar, Dornan is loose and game to go for it; it’s still early to conclude if he’s an untapped talent for comedy, but this is a refreshing change of pace from playing Christian Grey. His sublimely goofy musical number, which consists of Edgar pirouetting and pouring his heart out to seagulls on the beach, proves he’s more fun and charming when not taking himself so seriously. Damon Wayans Jr., as spy Darlie Bunkle, and newcomer Reyn Doi, as Dr. Lady’s sidekick Yoyo, are underused, and Vanessa Bayer, Phyllis Smith, Fortune Feimster, Rose Abdoo, and Wendi McLendon-Covey wouldn’t miss making brief but amusing appearances.

If cheerfully corny musical numbers, tacky bright colors, and amiable vibes all around weren’t enough, “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” offers as many loopy details as “Airplane!” has in sight gags. There is a hotel pianist who only sings about death and boobies; a talking crab whose voice is modeled after a certain esteemed actor with the voice of God; and non-sequiturs involving hot dog soup (don’t ask questions
). “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” is a gosh-darn delight, the sort of not-just-a-movie-but-an-experience comedy that really works if you succumb to its daffy, oddball charms. If you aren’t grinning from ear to ear like a Cheshire Cat the whole way through, it might deserve a reappraisal — or you’ll need your sense of humor checked. 


Grade: B


Lionsgate is releasing “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar” (106 min.) on premium VOD on February 12, 2021.

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