Friday, November 2, 2018

Movie Review: "An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn" (2018)

Director: Jim Hosking
Year: 2018
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour, 48 minutes

After barista Lulu Danger has a falling out with her husband, she pairs up with a bodyguard/muscle-for-hire to seek out a man from her past who is having a performance at a local hotel.

An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn 2018 movie still Aubrey Plaza
"There's no way that little fucking vegan has more money than me." (Image Source)
Seriously... what... the... fuck... did... we... just... watch?!?!?!?

"An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn" is directed by Jim Hosking, who is known for making the movie "The Greasy Strangler." He also helped write the screenplay along with David Wike. The story, if you can call it a story at all, revolves around a barista name Lulu Danger (Aubrey Plaza), who was recently fired from her job by her boss, who happens to be her husband Shane (Emile Hirsch). A short time later, Lulu sees a commercial advertising an event called "An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn, for one magical night only" at a local hotel. After an argument with Lulu, Shane steals a small cashbox full of money from Lulu's vegan adopted brother Adjay (Sam Dissanayake). Adjay hires a self-proclaimed fixer/bodyguard/muscle-for-hire named Colin (Jemaine Clement) to reclaim his stolen money. When Colin comes to collect the money from Shane, Lulu winds up stealing it for herself and takes Colin with her to attend the evening with Beverly Luff Linn (Craig Robinson).
An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn 2018 movie still Aubrey Plaza Jemaine Clement
"I'm not eating those poo nuts." (Image Source)
"An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn" is what you would expect to get if a group of 12-year-olds watched "Napoleon Dynamite" while smoking copious amounts of weed, and while they were stoned, wrote a stream of consciousness screenplay and magically got someone to fund it without actually reading the script first. Then, by some miracle, they got a few semi-recognizable actors to agree to work in the film for peanuts. This is a comedy that relies entirely on buckets of randomness and quirkiness being thrown at the audience for nearly two hours. The entire thing is like an internet meme come to life, only without the laughs. The acting, the line delivery, the screenplay, all of it is one-note, and that note is unfunny. Most of the actors yell their lines with the exception of Craig Robinson, who literally grunts his dialogue like a zombie. Jemaine Clement is the only person who feels like they are anywhere close to their wheelhouse since he has been very successful with this type of unconventional niche humor in the past. Clement is the only one who gets genuine moments in the entire film. Without him, this movie would be a 0/10.

We can't lie to you, we did laugh a couple of times, though these were not laughs derived from humor, they were chuckles of genuine head-scratching confusion. We were left so perplexed by "An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn" that we couldn't help but awkwardly laugh at the weird, random sequence of events and the stylized, oddly dressed characters living in what seems like a 'late 70's/early 80's' world that is never so much as spoken of. Our minor confusion turned into pure annoyance as it rolled along its runtime with little to no payoff come movie's end.
An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn 2018 movie still Craig Robinson
"Who the fuck is Beverly Luff Linn?!?!" (Image Source)
"An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn" is trying way, way too hard to bit kitschy and idiosyncratic, but it ultimately fails to find its footing in any realm of comedic standards. The only thing we were left wondering at the end of all the zaniness, once again for the people in the back, was "what the fuck did we just watch?!?!?" We adore almost all of the actors involved here, so it's a shame to see them acting in something this lame. Maybe someone somewhere will get a little joy out of this project, but we were left irritated that we had wasted our time.

My Rating: 2/10
BigJ's Rating: 2/10
IMDB's Rating: ~5.2/10
RT Rating: ~51%
Do we recommend this movie: AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!

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