Review: You Again (2010)
Note: This post contains a portion of a review originally written for CaryCitizen. To read the full review, click here.
After you’ve been exposed to a large quantity of movies, you begin to realize that they tend to follow certain rules. Since “funny” is such a subjective and difficult to establish concept, comedies in particular often resort to these rules in an attempt to satisfy the largest number of viewers. After all, if it was funny the first time, it will be funny on the thousandth time, right?
You Again contains several of the Laws Of Comedies we’ve seen over and over and over again. Law #27: For each second two women fight near food, the odds of it becoming a food fight increase exponentially. Corollary to Law #27: the same rate applies to the likelihood that arguments near a pool will result in one or both participants getting wet. Law #345: If an impromptu wedding is required, an elaborate ceremony (complete with celebrity guests) can be organized in mere hours no matter the location. Law #142: The presence of Betty White decreases a joke’s likelihood of failure by 63%, since Ms. White is just so damn adorable.
The plot finds Marni (Kristen Bell) is a former acne-covered high school loser who is now a successful PR executive. She flies home for her brother’s wedding, only to discover that his fiancée Joanna (Odette Yustman) is her former high school bully. Meanwhile, her mother (Jamie Lee Curtis) finds that Joanna’s aunt (Sigourney Weaver) is her teenage nemesis. Gasp! Shock! Unable to get over the terrible atrocities they underwent in their adolescence, both mother and daughter find themselves out for revenge, resulting in one supposedly hilarious mishap after another.