Directed by Jessica Yu — Screenplay by Jen D’Angelo.
Jessica Yu’s Quiz Lady follows Anne (played by Awkwafina), a young woman with social anxiety and an obsession with a certain game show named ‘Can’t Stop the Quiz.’ One day, she is informed that her mother has fled the home that she was in and left for Macau presumably to gamble and get out of her gambling debt in America. This information also reaches Anne’s older sister Jenny (played by Sandra Oh), who is a decidedly more outgoing party girl, and they reconnect for a few days. On one of those days, Jenny secretly records and uploads a video of Anne watching her favorite game show. It becomes an instant hit online as Anne knows every single answer to every single question.
Anne becomes the internet’s Quiz Lady, and Jenny desperately wants Anne to compete on the show, which is so frightening to Anne who hates being looked at. However, Anne soon finds out that she doesn’t have much of a choice, as, soon thereafter, a loan shark confronts Anne and tells her that she and Jenny’s mother owe him $80,000 and that he has kidnapped her dog, Mr. Linguini (played by Crosby Cookie), and refuses to give him back until she has paid off her mother’s debt. And so, now the titular Quiz Lady must overcome her social anxiety to save her beloved dog.
With that kind of premise and the kind of talent that Awkwafina and Sandra Oh bring to the table, Quiz Lady should be an amusing little film — and, you know, it really is for a large chunk of it. I will say that it, to me, didn’t fully find its legs until the second half of the film, though. For much of the first half, it felt to me like it was just going through the motions with nothing particularly noteworthy, and the rapport between Awkwafina and Oh didn’t fully hit initially, for me. Frankly, I thought Oh’s portrayal of the reckless older sister was slightly grating in the first half, but, as the film went along, Sandra Oh and Awkwafina both really proved to be doing solid work here.
They’re essentially doing a classic double act with Awkwafina — who is often known for her eccentric supporting work — tasked with being the film’s ‘straight man’ and Sandra Oh being the comic ‘funny man’. They make it work as the film goes along with Awkwafina’s gradual loosening up being really felt. In the early parts, Awkwafina plays her character with a hunched-over look, and then she really comes into her own in the second half of the film as a really fun accidental drug scene livens up the character and the humor quite a bit. The double act’s arc is also really satisfying as the estranged siblings come closer together.
Really, the film kicks into high gear once the actual quizzing in the title comes to the forefront. This is partly because of how Oh and Awkwafina’s characters push each other as the narrative develops, but it is also due to notable supporting work from Holland Taylor, Tony Hale, Jason Schwartzman, and, especially, Will Ferrell. Ferrell is having a decent year with both his memorable appearance in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and his voice work in Josh Greenbaum’s Strays to look back on, but I think his best performance of the year is delivered in Jessica Yu’s comedy. Here Ferrell never goes over-the-top or treats it like a sketch. Instead, Ferrell imbues his performance with a restraint and a loving touch that really works for the film — he helps to make the final third feel like a nice, warm blanket.
Ultimately, I do think this is a tale of two halves, with the first half not being as successful as the second, which ended up really winning me over. But once it finds its legs (and it does), it is both laugh-out-loud funny, sweet, and warm. Siblings and families will have a lot of fun with this one if they give it a chance.
6.7 out of 10
– Review Written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.
I'm Jeffrey Rex 