Girl Most Likely (2013)

Best way to get your man back? Fake-kill yourself. Just you wait, he’ll be back in no time.

Imogene (Kristen Wiig) seemed to have had it all: the boyfriend, the writing job, the fancy apartment in NYC, the much-needed separation from her gambling-addicted mother (Annette Bening). However, it all goes down the drain once she loses one aspect, and then it becomes a domino effect from there on in, which makes her fake a suicide-attempt, in hopes that it will bring her boyf back to her. It doesn’t. But since she pulled a risky stunt like this, she can’t be trusted on her own so is now forced to live with her said gambling-addicted mother, her new boyfriend, a supposed CIA agent by the name of George (Matt Dillon), her geeky brother (Christopher Fitzgerald), and some tool that’s been renting out her room for quite some time (Darren Criss). It’s all bad for Imogene at first, but she soon realizes that maybe her old life wasn’t as great as she may have seen it as being. That, or she just didn’t amount to shit. Something like that, I think.

Alright, let me just put it as simply and obviously as I can: This movie is a total mess. It’s a total mess that I wish I avoided, but I just couldn’t turn down a screening invite to because of the big name’s attached and an odd crush I’ve had on Wiig for quite some time now. It seemed like it was supposed to be good from the outside-looking-in, but it just is not because the whole movie can’t rise beyond it’s one-note premise. Even when it tries to, it does it so miserably, that it has nowhere else to go but downhill from there. Problem is, it’s already down at the bottom of the hill. So seriously, where the hell can a film go if it’s already at the deepest, darkest hell of the hill?

Clothing: Way. Too. Colorful.

I have no clue. That’s what I’m still struggling to figure out, but I don’t care too much about this movie or the explanation to figure out what.

I know I sound like a miserable git that can’t have fun, even if the movie is terrible but no, no, no! This movie is really bad and actually surprised me because it started off fine. It had a good premise, a good start-up to where we are thrown into this girl Imogene’s life, and are left to figure out what she’s going to do with the rest of it. It’s a perfect set-up for a pretty good dramedy, if there was one to be found here, but there isn’t. Instead, it’s just a whole slew of repetitive-jokes that get old from about the first 5 seconds that they’re introduced. However, the movie doesn’t care and will more than love to bang them against your head, until they’ve been implanted in your brain when you leave, just so you have something worth remembering. Maybe the creators didn’t have that much effort in their systems while making this movie, but I’m just in a sinister mood. So leave me be, dammit!

Let me take the time to tell you some of the running-gags that these characters have, and will never, ever let you forget about. Imogene’s the only lucky one here who comes out surprisingly unscathed, except for maybe the joke that she’s too old for the people she hangs out around. She wears a Friends t-shirt for about 10 minutes, she dresses like a grand-mom at risque night-clubs, when it’s made abundantly clear that she’s probably around her mid-to-late 30’s, and constantly reminds everybody that she’s in a totally, different day and age than all of them combined. That’s her joke, I guess if I had to reach out for one. Wiig milks it for all that she can and comes up pretty successful at times, but feels like she’s trying way too hard to be all awkward and odd, but for no reason.

Moving on, we have her gambling-addicted mother that cannot stop mentioning winning some sort of poker/blackjack game, even when her own daughter’s in the hospital because of an apparent suicide-attempt. Also, she likes to make sandwiches. A lot of sandwiches to be exact. Don’t know why this is meant to be shown as a joke, as if she’s a goof-ball or something, but it does not work, no matter how hard to Bening is trying to make it so. And she really does try. Poor gal. Matt Dillion has his joke where he’s a mysterious, shady CIA-agent that’s also involved with the samurai code that has him talking about some odd morals and rules that he must live by. Oh, and before I forget: He likes to eat the sandwiches that Bening’s character makes for him. That’s right, he eats sandwiches. What a bunch of jokesters these people are!

Now I know why I didn’t like him! Bastard.

Then, we have the brother who’s your typical, anti-social nerd. He practically lives in his room, one filled to the core with crabs, lobsters, and all sorts of other creatures, I’m sure, and doesn’t talk to girls at all. Hell, he barely even leaves his room and when he actually does, it’s only to work at the shop he owns which, you guessed it, sells crabs! Fitzgerald is more than up to the task of trying his hardest to make this character work or even be funny for that matter, and actually had me chuckling at least once or twice, but the script treats him as a total dweeb, one that will never, ever get laid, no matter how many crabs he ditches. Poor guy.

Darren Criss doesn’t really have a joke to his persona, mainly because a rock has better comedic-timing than him. I don’t know who this dude is, but Darren Criss is not a name I want to see anywhere near another comedy I see in the near-future, because he is not funny and doesn’t even seem to try at all to be so. He’s just there to look pretty, be a forced, romantic-interest for Wiig’s character, and sing Backstreet Boys songs because that’s apparently what all heterosexual dudes do, especially when they’re trying to bang somebody like Kristen Wiig. Maybe that’s what I need to do in order to win her over? Just maybe I will.

Consensus: Girl Most Likely has some promise of a generic, but entertaining flick that has a nice heart intact, but is neither and tries to fulfill both sides of the equation, and still falls apart while trying to do so, much to the dismay of the talented cast (except for Criss) on deck.

1.5 / 10 = Crapola!!

“So, you guys ever heard of Scott Joplin? You know, cause I’m so old.”