Support the Girls
Directed by: Andrew Bujalski
Written by: Andrew Bujalski
Starring: Regina Hall, Shayna McHayle, Haley Lu Richardson, Dylan Gelula, James Le Gros, Lea DeLaria, AJ Michalka, Lawrence Varnado, Jana Kramer, Sam Stinson, John Elvis, Sean Gallagher, Steve Zapata, Brooklyn Decker, Jermichael Grey, Pete Partida, Chris Brown
Comedy - 90 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 21 Aug 2018
Written by: Andrew Bujalski
Starring: Regina Hall, Shayna McHayle, Haley Lu Richardson, Dylan Gelula, James Le Gros, Lea DeLaria, AJ Michalka, Lawrence Varnado, Jana Kramer, Sam Stinson, John Elvis, Sean Gallagher, Steve Zapata, Brooklyn Decker, Jermichael Grey, Pete Partida, Chris Brown
Comedy - 90 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 21 Aug 2018
There is a nip slip in Support the Girls. One of scantily clad waitresses hops up on the bar, a nipple is witnessed by the old, fat, and buzzed clientele, and you would think she just insulted Jesus Christ, NASCAR, and MAGA all at the same time. The local lawman closes the bar and throws everybody out. “This is a family restaurant!” Double Whammies, with its wait staff (all girls and all skinny) shoved into barely there jean shorts and micro-tops, is a family restaurant built on traditional values and unquestionable morality. How dare some sullied wench befoul such a pure and innocent atmosphere with a devilish nipple?
I may be sensationalizing writer/director Andrew Bujalski’s goal here because it most likely is not his intention to poke fun at the ‘breastaurant’ industry. He tells a deeper story about the girls underneath the lack of clothing, not in an overt mocking manner, but in a real sense; these waitresses are real people, who bring real problems with them to the job, and thread the needle between family fun and risqué burlesque. To frame the girls and how they respond to and interact with each other, their boss, the clientele, and the contradictory situation of family vs. skin, Bujalski employs a ‘day in the life’ plot device.
I may be sensationalizing writer/director Andrew Bujalski’s goal here because it most likely is not his intention to poke fun at the ‘breastaurant’ industry. He tells a deeper story about the girls underneath the lack of clothing, not in an overt mocking manner, but in a real sense; these waitresses are real people, who bring real problems with them to the job, and thread the needle between family fun and risqué burlesque. To frame the girls and how they respond to and interact with each other, their boss, the clientele, and the contradictory situation of family vs. skin, Bujalski employs a ‘day in the life’ plot device.
Restaurant/retail settings are more ripe than other locales for this method. These are zones of monotony; everything is supposed to operate the same way every single day. Yet, movie scripts love to toy with this implied familiarity with the everything that can happen, will happen trope. Kevin Smith did it twice in his first two films, Clerks and Mallrats. Everything happened to one music store in Empire Records while everything happened to a cookie cutter bar and grill in Waiting. Support the Girls doesn’t go as zany as these examples because it’s not as much a pure slapstick comedy. Bujalski sports the ‘mumblecore’ label after his name; therefore, must be far too indie to make a gag a minute film.
His previous film, Results, about a two intense personal trainers and an awkward customer was one of the more perplexing and forgettable indie films in the past couple years; however, Support the Girls is a firm step forward in filmmaking. We come to empathize with the girls even though most of us cannot remotely relate to their situation. Working in an environment which everyone recognizes is 10% strip club but painfully pretends this cannot possibly be true would throw most employees off their game, which may be one reason Double Whammies appears to have a significant turnover. At the beginning, general manager Lisa (Regina Hall, Girls Trip) is looking to hire a whole new slate of girls. Whatever happened to the previous ones is anybody’s guess, but by the end of her shift, they are going to need a whole new crop of girls after this group as well.
Lisa is a firm manager, but also acts as a mother hen. One of the girls gets in trouble with the law and will need a lawyer, so Lisa sets up an impromptu car wash in the parking lot to raise funds. Lisa, whether she admits it to herself or not, also participates in this family vs. frolicking pretense by using the waitress’ bodies to get cars into the parking lot, but admonishes one the of the new girls for leaning too far in with her chest while cleaning a windshield. Lisa runs a support system for the girls, strives to foster a sense of “sisterhood” among them, but nobody takes their setting and situation as seriously as she does.
Lisa has a couple go-to veteran waitresses to lean on and they provide Support the Girls with the fresh air it needs to get by. Danyelle (Shayna McHayle) brings her son to work when she lacks child care, recognizes what the owner is up to by only allowing one ‘minority’ girl per shift, but plays the game as much as the rest of them. Bubbly Maci (Haley Lu Richardson, Columbus) has most likely never been sad one day in her life. Peppy is not enough to describe her; she is high on life and knows how to laugh with her mouth open to make the customer want to upsize that beer they have no idea they are about to order. Danyelle and Maci are the breeze to Lisa’s murkier stormy weather as she battles daily dramatics and bickers with Double Whammies’s prickly owner.
The owner does not realize there is a humanity to these girls. He orders no drama as they serve burgers with a side of tits to creepy dudes, their kids, and grandma. Bujalski says the idea for this movie arrived by noticing how uniquely American breastaurants are. At no time in history has anything like them ever existed other than just off interstate exits in the U.S.A. Bujalski keeps it more level-headed than your run-of-the-mill crazy day comedy and takes the story in unexpected directions. Earlier details we are sure are meant to be foreshadowing for some later escapade never return because Bujalski has things to say about the larger industry Double Whammies is merely one slice of. Artfully avoiding stereotypes, Support the Girls is a welcome reminder girls specifically hired for their physical accessories are people too - just pretend they have no nipples.
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