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Support the Girls
****
Dir: Andrew Bujalski
Starring: Regina Hall, Haley Lu Richardson, James LeGros
(USA, 15, 1hr 33mins)
Regina Hall shines in this big-hearted comedy about a low rent ‘Hooters’ style bar, that sells its food and drink on the basis of the waitresses’ measurements. Hall plays Lisa, the manager of Double Whammies and we follow her trials and tribulations over the course of a shift.
She is the trier, the motivator to a group of young twenty-something women trying to make a living. Amongst the girls are Hayley Lu Richardson’s perkily vacant Maci, the blunt Shayna McHayle as Danyelle and tip-chasing Jenelle played by {Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt}’s Dylan Gelula. Despite their apparently demeaning jobs they have forged a family of sorts together, with Hall very much the kindly matriarch solving a constant stream of problems. The cable TV is out with fight to be televised that night, there’s a car wash that needs a sound system, there are troublesome customers and a would-be burglar trapped in an air vent. All whilst Hall tries to implement the restaurant’s number one rule – No Drama.
Hall is the calm ringmaster, whose own marriage is falling apart whilst having to deal with the racism of manager James Le Gros, who won’t allow more than one black woman to serve per shift. She is the glue that holds everything together, snatching rare moments of peace and quiet when she can before another of her girls tells her she’s been called fat, or that she’s put her abusive boyfriend in hospital. It’s a rambling slice-of-life narrative, empowering those who are making the best of what they have been given. Bujalski’s script is witty and aware, capturing the daily grind as well as celebrating small triumphs, Hall’s dispatching of a creep due to a zero tolerance of sexual harassment being one of them.
Men are idiots and ineffectual, but it’s the lazy who are the targets for Hall’s ire. A fabulous central performance and a solid supporting cast bring class and dignity to {Support The Girls}, which could so easily have turned into something exploitative. Instead it’s a brisk engaging drama with plenty of laughs that allows its characters to breathe.
words Keiron Self
Opens June 28