Author Jane Austen passed away, age 41, in 1817 but her influence has proven to be timeless. Her novels, literary studies in parody, burlesque and irony mixed with social commentary, have enjoyed second lives in everything from “Clueless,” an update of “Emma” set in Beverly Hills, and the self-explanatory “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”
Add to the list, just in time for Pride Month, “Fire Island,” a new LGBTQ2+ romantic comedy on Disney+, based on Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.”
Joel Kim Booster stars as Noah, part of a twentysomething group of friends who gather every year for a week of mixing and mingling at a Fire Island house owned by their friend and den mother Erin (Margaret Cho). It is a tradition and a sacred “gay Disney World” weekend for bookworm Max (Torian Miller), pleasure seekers Luke (Matt Rogers) and Keegan (Tomas Matos) and Noah’s best friend Howie (“Saturday Night Live’s” Bowen Yang) who now lives in San Francisco but makes the trip every year.
Determined to arrange a love match, or at least a hook-up, for the insecure Howie, Noah is on the look-out for eligible men.
Enter the “prejudice” part of the story, the Mr. Darcy character, Will (Conrad Ricamora). He’s a snobby, wealthy man visiting the island with a gaggle of his lawyerin’ and doctorin’ friends. Will’s friend Charlie (James Scully) and Howie hit it off, but will Noah and Will be able to overcome their differences and become friends?
Originally created as a series on the now-defunct Quibi service, “Fire Island” has expanded to feature length with its exploration (by way of Austen) of class and status intact. Booster, who stars and wrote the script, transposes Austen’s corsets and petticoats for Speedos and wild drug and booze fueled parties but maintains the source material’s study of overcoming obstacles for true love, class status and, especially in reference to Noah’s clique, the strength of a family network. The bond between the guys is at is the heart of this R-rated movie and helps anchor the raunchier and lighter “Legally Blonde” moments.
Director Andrew Ahn keeps up the pace, and makes Fire Island look like a million-dollar getaway. That glossy style, combined with Austen’s sensibility, adds up to an entertaining comedy of manners; lightweight, but celebratory.
“Dinner with Friends,” a new comedy starring Malin Akerman and Kat Dennings now on VOD, is a Hollywood Hills friends and family farce that seems to have done much of its casting at the nearby Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip.
Dennings and Akerman are Abby and Molly, BFFs who have both recently split with their significant others. After declaring she would love her to “the moon and back,” Abby’s girlfriend left abruptly and Molly is now a single mom after her four-year marriage imploded. Their plan to spend a quiet Thanksgiving is turned upside down when Molly’s one-night-stand (Jack Donnelly) blossoms into a relationship and decides to crash their party.
From there the party grows and grows as word gets out of a Friendsgiving at Molly’s house. Her touchy-feely mom Helen (Jane Seymour) arrives, fresh off her fifth divorce, and gets friendly with Molly’s old boyfriend (Ryan Hansen). Then there’s an assortment of characters like self-described “shawoman” Claire (Chelsea Peretti), the hemorrhoid obsessed Rick (Andrew Santino) and Lauren (Aisha Tyler) who shows up with her husband (Deon Cole), two kids and a stash of magic mushrooms.
Predictably, things swing out of control as friends, family and ex-lovers collide. There’s even a trio of “Fairy Gay Mothers” (Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Fortune Feimster) who descend to offer Abby some life advice.
“Dinner with Friends,” called “Friendsgiving” in the United States, is an all-out farce with a heart of gold. By the time the end credits roll the movie reveals itself not to be about a randy mother figure or a friend’s psychedelic trip. Ultimately, it’s a story of healing and working through dysfunction. Along the way, however, are enough raunchy jokes to curdle your eggnog. It’s an old formula and despite some winning performances—many from the stand-up comics who migrated down from the Comedy Store—it feels as stale as Thanksgiving’s left-over stuffing.
Glen Keane brings 43 years of Disney character animation experience to a new film now streaming on Netflix. From “The Little Mermaid’s” Ariel, “Beauty and the Beast’s main character—the Beast, not the Beauty—to the eponymous folks in “Aladdin,” “Pocahontas” and “Tarzan,” he’s the Disney Legend who created some of the most indelible characters of several eras.
This week he turns his eye, as character designer and director, to “Over the Moon,” a fanciful animated musical loosely based on the Chinese legend of Chang’e, starring the voices of Sandra Oh, Phillipa Soo and Ken Jeong.
The action begins in modern China, four years after the passing of Fei Fei’s (Cathy Ang) mother. She’s smart, funny and a romantic who believes in the legend her parents told her about Chang’e (Phillipa Soo), the Moon Goddess who yearns to be reunited with her true love. Fei Fei is still grieving her mother’s loss when her father (John Cho) becomes involved with another woman Mrs. Zhong (Sandra Oh) and her 8-year-old child, Chin (Robert G. Chiu).
To prove that love is forever and that her father’s affection for Mrs. Zhong is misplaced, Fei Fei concocts a plan. She builds a rocket ship to visit the moon so she can get evidence of Chang’e existence to prove to her father that love burns eternal. Unbeknownst to her Chin stows away on the adventure to the moon that will help her appreciate what she thinks she is missing on Earth.
“Over the Moon” isn’t a Disney picture, but it feels like one thanks to the Keane touch. The familiar tropes, a deceased parent and adventure, are given a zippy new life with colourful, fun animation and some beautiful sequences like the cross cut between the CGI to the more traditional hand drawn animation in the telling of the legend. There are flashier more fluorescent sequences later on, particularly in the vivid and abstract Lunaria scenes, but the use of an organic style of animation to illustrate a time-honored story is the first of many of the film’s good decisions.
Also strong is the voice work. As Fei Fei, Ang is feisty and smart as a self-sufficient youngster on a journey of self-discovery. She is no damsel in distress, just a kid looking to make things right in her world. The supporting cast, like Margaret Cho in a dual role and Ken Jeong as Fei Fei’s sidekick Gobi bring the goods as does Soo, who earned a Tony nomination for her work on Broadway in “Hamilton,” but her work leads to one of the film’s minuses.
Soo is a great singer, and has one of the movie’s show-stoppers, a Broadway-by-way-of-Beyonce tune called “Ultraluminary,” but each of the songs feels tacked on in an effort to sell soundtrack downloads. A mix of show tunes, K-Pop and pop music, with the exception of “Rocket to the Moon” none of the tunes feel necessary.
“Over the Moon” is a beautiful movie that celebrates Chinese culture, tells a story of overcoming grief and has some great animation and while the main story beats feel familiar, the high gloss visuals are unpredictable and consistently interesting.
