SXSW: Geekscape Reviews Barry Munday

Barry Munday is a movie about a guy who gets his balls cut off, or at least that’s the gimmick that’s being sold to the audience. It sells itself as low brow shock comedy when in actuality the testicle trauma is somewhat nonessential to the story and is, in some ways, even harmful. There is heart hidden beneath the broad comedy but it is too often obscured or, alternatively, shoved down your throat in a way that is more off putting than moving.

Patrick Wilson plays Barry Munday, an office cubicle resident who spends his time hitting on uninterested coworkers or hunting for women during Happy Hour at Chili’s. That is until his balls get cut off by a trumpet in an accident that feels like an odd non-sequiter as opposed to a natural part of the film. It is the random kind of comedic outburst that you might associate with something like Family Guy.

The real heart of the movie is the story of an unjustifiably cocky womanizer who is forced to become a responsible adult after finding out a one night stand, that occurred just prior to his accident, ended in pregnancy. This is certainly not new territory but Barry Munday walks the well worn path without stumbling too much.

I think the film will have a hard time avoiding comparisons to Judd Apatow’s “loser guy learns to become a responsible man after getting a girl pregnant” movie Knocked Up, and the comparison isn’t always kind to Barry Munday.  In a lot of ways this feels like Knocked Up-lite, and I think that might be its downfall. The movies feature almost all of the same beats, but Knocked Up had a certain truth to it. Knocked Up was hilarious and touching, which Munday can be in spots, but it also felt honest while Munday feels manufactured. When Knocked Up takes you through the standard rom-com tropes, you don’t feel the cliché or the script. With Munday you can’t escape it.

The saving graces of the film would certainly have to be the performances. Wilson’s Munday is a dead ringer for someone you know; most likely the coworker you do your best to ignore. A great caricature from a great actor who seems increasingly interested in playing schlubby emasculated dudes (and who is no stranger to testicular torture, Hard Candy anyone?). Wilson really was transformed with this role. His mannerisms are dead on and often hilarious. Unfortunately he does at times give in too much to the caricature nature of the role, which makes him feel like a guy in a Saturday Night Live skit rather than a real person. This is a problem with almost every character in the film. Judy Greer plays Ginger Farley, the unlucky lady who gets impregnated by Barry Munday. Greer, like Wilson, is an attractive and talented actress who seems to have settled for playing the undesirable. Greer doesn’t fair quite as well as Wilson here. Wilson manages to be funny and subtle and somewhat believable despite the broad nature of his character, while Greer plays her part pretty one note. She hides behind her frizzy hair and giant glasses and constant sniffling.

These are not characters you can relate to. They are characters you can point at and say “Heh, that’s kind of like so and so”. There are a few notable exceptions, such as a scene late in the film where the two are on a couch and they discuss how they came to be where and who they are. In this scene I saw two people, not two characters in a film. If this was true of the rest of the movi, it could have risen above its “almost but not quite” status.

Another great example of this is the smattering of scenes dealing with Munday’s relationship with his mother, played by Jean Smart. Munday’s father left before he was born and the scenes where Barry and his mom talk about what it is to be a father and a man are very touching.

There are some notable supporting roles and cameos by people such as Chloe Sevigny, Billy Dee Williams, Malcolm McDowell, etc. It actually kind of boggles my mind how many interesting names popped up on screen and they mostly do well with their limited screen time.

First time director Chris D’Arienzo shows that he can put together a solid film here, at times even being reminiscent of Mike Judge, and hopefully next time he will have the confidence to move away from convention a bit.

As it stands Barry Munday is a movie that, while being generally enjoyable, is going to have a hard time getting out from behind the shadow of better films that cover the exact same subject matter.