Delayed Reaction: Support the Girls

The Pitch: It's about time that someone made a drama about a Hooters-like establishment.

Regina Hall is the General Manager of a wings & girls bar on an especially trying day.

I've had a dilemma for a while. One built on my own neuroses. I really like buffalo wings. I go to a bunch of different bars and restaurants for them. One of the places I'd like to go to more is Hooters, because the couple times I've been there, I really have liked the wings. The problem is that it's kind of like reading Playboy for the articles (For the record: That magazine really did have good articles). If I say "I like going to Hooters", what most people hear is "I like leering at women". So, I just don't bother, because there are enough other good wing places in the world.

I think there's a similar problem with Support the Girls. By nature of it being about the general manager of a Hooters-like sports bar (called Double Whammies), this movie is populated by  a bunch of busty young women. Many could think that was my reason for looking forward to seeing this so much. I'll admit, it certainly doesn't hurt, and I've seen movies for lesser reasons. However, there are a lot of legitimate reasons I wanted to see this. Regina Hall has been a dark horse critical pick for Best Actress in 2018. Haley Lu Richardson hasn't been bad in any movie I've seen. I love "slice of life" movies that follow a single day in a person's life. The main thing I didn't like about Waiting... a dozen years ago was the gross out humor. Support the Girls switched that out with some dramatic heft. I liked the sound of that.

I low-key really liked Support the Girls. It's a small movie. The opening credits had me concerned about how cheap the movie would be, but I didn't notice that at all once the action got going. It is a small movie though. Most of it takes place in or around the bar. It goes only as  far as the performances take it. Regina Hall really is excellent in this. She's been underappreciated for years. She plays the rock at the center of the movie that lets everyone else go wild. Haley Lu Richardson is hilarious simply because of her exuberance. I also liked Dylan Gelula as the overly gung-ho college student and AJ Michalka's story is pathetically funny.

What most impressed me about the movie was how little it held the audience's hand. Normally, when I watch movies from home, I'm also working on some project on my computer at the same time. It's a built in defense in case I realize a movie is just awful. Pretty early on, I realized that I had to give Support the Girls my full attention. It doesn't spell things out or repeat itself. It's happy to give a quick visual cue of something and never mention it again. I'm still not sure I caught all the sub-stories that happened even when I was paying full attention.

I had mixed to negative feelings about Andrew Bujalski's last movie, Results. I really liked Support the Girls. I should probably track down his next movie or one of his earlier ones to figure out which is the exception to the rule. 

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend