"The paradox about the menial service jobs we've all taken during our youth is that they were probably the most sheerly enjoyable, mindless hours many of us have ever spent on the clock, despite also being in the presence of people whose hopes and dreams for a better career stalled out a long time ago. Andrew Bujalski's miraculous Support the Girls pulls off the feat of seeing that distinction from both sides, and Regina Hall's rightly lauded, NYFCC-endorsed turn as a manager on the verge of a characteristically controlled breakdown is only half of the story.
"Surrounding Hall's Lisa, who endures a day that just refuses to stop falling apart trying to hold her team together, is an assemblage of characters who could only have come together through the nexus of indifference and desperation required to seek employment at a restaurant called Double Whammies. It's not that no one else is as serious as Lisa, it's that late stage capitalism requires everyone else to take everything but their jobs seriously -- doing battle with unwarranted advances from oily stereo equipment salesmen, finding babysitters on random weekday afternoons, convincing cousins to crack into the backroom safe on off hours.
"Lisa's struggle throughout the film is not that of a manager trying to ensure solid work from her employees but rather that of a mother trying to achieve social coherence within her work family. She's only kidding herself, and the chaotically amusing performances of the rest of Support the Girls' cast drive home that delusion. Haley Lu Richardson's perky Maci (picture King of the Hill's Luanne at the top of her class) is as winningly naïve as Shayna McHayle's Danyelle is guardedly skeptical. In particular, Danyelle's deadpan observation that she's 'pretty sure' it's illegal for Double Whammies to enforce an off-the-books max cap on how many black waitresses they're allowed to hire is note perfect, as is James LeGros as the restaurant owner who came up with that policy, dead inside and ruling like a despot what miniscule corner of the business world he can claim as his own. Double Whammies may not be the family Lisa seeks, but Support the Girls' cast comes as close as any movie's did this year." ~ Eric Henderson
This year's "nominees:"
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The Favourite
If Beale Street Could Talk
Shoplifters
Support the Girls
Widows
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