Film Review with Robert Mann – You Again

12th November 2010

You Again **

The concept for You Again is one of those that is almost timeless and that has great comic potential, dealing with themes that could readily be applied to almost any era and that many, young or old, will undoubtedly be able to relate to – the horrors of high school and having that one person who just made your life a living hell.
Many people will have been bullied at some point during their time in their high school careers, this is hardly something that is new to movies (in fact, I dare you to try and think of an American high school movie that hasn’t featured a character who is a bully), but rarely do we see on film what the long term implications of that bullying may be – until now that is, in a fashion at least. You see, while the concept here does have comic potential, it also has a very serious side to it as well – after all, bullying is a very serious issue in real life – but, suffice to say, there is little serious about this film. Never having dealt with serious material and not looking to change this any time soon, director Andy Fickman’s track record really speaks for itself. While he has forayed into more adult territory with 2005’s Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, by and large his resume consists of films aimed purely at the younger moviegoer, notably featuring teen comedy She’s The Man and Disney flicks The Game Plan and Race to Witch Mountain. And the fact that You Again boasts a U rating – something that seems to be quite rare for live action movie nowadays – probably means that you’ve already guessed that this is a film made with the younger demographic squarely in mind and your presumption about what to expect from the film will undoubtedly prove correct. You Again is not remotely serious and, quite fatally, also not particularly funny either.

As a teenager, Marni (Kristen Bell) was the kind of girl no girl would go near, a geeky bespectacled high-school loser mercilessly bullied by the popular and perfect Joanna (Odette Yustman). Joanna made Marni’s time in high school a living hell but years later, having survived the horror of high school, Marni has a successful career and, having just been promoted, is looking forward to going home for her brother Will’s (Jimmy Wolk) wedding and meeting his bride for the first time. She is in for a shock, however, as it turns out that Will is getting married to Joanna. When they meet she wants Joanna to apologize for the way she treated her but Joanna feigns ignorance and has entranced Marni’s family – mother Gail (Jamie Lee Curtis), father Mark (Victor Garber), younger brother Ben (Billy Unger) and her Grandma Bunny (Betty White) – and even dance tutor Georgia (Kristen Chenoweth), who’s convinced that Joanna is sincere, with her apparent flawlessness. Gail tries to encourage her to let bygones be bygones but Marni is unable to put the past behind her and sets out to expose Joanna for who she is. Things take an interesting twist as well when it is revealed that Joanna’s aunt, Ramona (Sigourney Weaver), is an old friend turned rival of Gail’s. Suddenly, old rivalries begin spilling out, threatening to destroy the big day. But is Marni right about Joanna still being the same girl she was in high school and what really sparked the rivalry between Gail and Ramona.

It’s a long time since I have had the misfortune to see such a talented cast as the one here so completely wasted as they are in You Again. You’d think that such distinguished actors as Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver would bring some real class to a film such as this but sadly their efforts are wasted on a series of slapstick scenarios. Regardless, however, it is the older generation who prove to be the best here, younger actresses like Kristen Bell simply being likable and little more, Odette Yustman doing mean pretty well but not being quite as convincing when playing nice, Kristen Chenoweth hardly bring given anything to do and a surprise cameo appearance by Dwayne Johnson just seeming pointless and out of place. The show really belongs to Betty White who is by far the best thing in the film – a scene at the end featuring her and Cloris Yeachman, who used to trade barbs with White on 70s TV show Mary Tyler Moore, is particularly amusing – but sadly even she has limited screen time. The actors are certainly not to blame for the film’s failings though, with pretty much everyone doing a decent job and only being let down by the poor quality of the material they have been given to work with. It would be easy to blame director Andy Fickman for everything, and indeed a lot of blame does rest on his shoulders, but the real weak link in this film is writer Moe Jelline, whose only previous writing credit was Love and Marriage, a TV show from 1996 that ran for two episodes. Jelline leaves no cliché unplundered in her screenplay which delivers a plot that is entirely predictable and overly sentimental, dialogue that is unwitty and mediocre and characters that mostly come across as two dimensional stereotypes, virtually no insight being given into the true long lasting effects of bullying. Additionally, she makes it very hard to figure out who, if anyone, we are supposed to be rooting for, Marni’s actions coming across as so mean as to almost draw our sympathises towards Joanna while Joanna’s apparently nice nature seems so completely fake (this could be partly due to Yustman’s performance though) that it is hard to believe that she has actually changed. Many of these flaws could be forgivable if the film at least delivered in the laughs department but sadly, aside from a few twitters (referring to both a particular scene and the humour in general) and a few amusing comic set pieces (all in the slapstick vein of comedy rather than anything more sophisticated), this is a film that really fails to bring on the funny, the film sometimes proving almost as embarrassing to watch as it is for the characters to experience and scenes that take on a musical tone featuring some of the most criminally bad singing outside of The X Factor. Fickman’s direction doesn’t exactly do much to change the fortunes of the film either with even the comic potential that is Jelline’s script not being exploited and an overly saccharine style making this far too sugary for anyone looking for any decent exploration of the themes present herein. Also, while the film seems to be trying to appeal to the older generation as well as the younger one, particularly with regard to its casting, the humour is so blatantly targeted at younger viewers as to not provide much for older viewers to actually enjoy. Fickman does nothing to steer the film away from the realm of the obvious – even the musical score is so completely familiar – and the result is a film that proves to be charmless. Sure, there is some enjoyment to be had in seeing Jamie Lee Curtis square off against Sigourney Weaver but everything that is done with it falls into the been there done that category and is not enough to make this truly worth your time. So, while not unwatchable, You Again is one film that you may not want to see again if you even see it once, which I would recommend you to do.

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Review by Robert Mann BA (Hons)

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