film fatales #215: the breaker upperers (madeleine sami and jackie van beek, 2018)
Thursday, September 26, 2024
This is the fourth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Week 4 is called "Her Dark Material Week":
Are you familiar with Letterboxd user's hyper-specific lists? You know, the ones with weirdly-similar, surprisingly common details shared by two or three otherwise unrelated films? It's too bad there aren't enough options for an LSC weekly challenge. They're inspiring, though, so, in that vein, we'll cast our attention toward a list that goes a bit broader but still feels sufficiently focused. The first shared element for this week's challenge is that the movie be female-led (or the storyline at least female-driven.) Tipping the scales more equitably is something we're interested in here at LSC, and setting our sights on stories about women is a small but conscious step in that direction. Second, there's a twist! Forget light and frothy. Instead, we need something with an undercurrent of darkness, as there's nothing like a streak of controversy to keep things interesting. And, third, let there be LOLs! Laughing has myriad health benefits (it can increase your immune response, for one), and who couldn't be in better health?
Voila! Your challenge this week is to watch a title from Kevin MJ's The Best Female-Led Dark Comedy Films list. It might not carve out as meticulous a nano genre as some others, but it'll give us a wealth of options and hopefully prove as much fun!
Well, I was warned. The Breaker Upperers is a dark comedy, and I'm not a fan of modern comedies. Using the Letterboxd definition of comedies, I have given my highest rating to only two comedies in the 21st century. At some point (and I reached this point a long time ago) it is pointless for me to comment on modern comedies. Good ones, bad ones, they connect with me so rarely that I have nothing to say, and my evaluation is so biased that no one can learn anything from my opinion. So I'll say that The Breaker Upperers is refreshing in that it's a buddy movie about women, and Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beek, who directed, wrote, and starred, are talented. And Lucy Lawless has a blink-and-you'll-miss it cameo.
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