An old friendship hits the road

 

   Will & Harper, a chronicle of a 16-day cross-country road trip made by Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, deals with two old friends adjusting to a challenging new development in their lives. In 2022, Steele came out as a transgender woman.

   Previously, Steele had been Andrew Steele; he and Ferrell had been friends since 1995 when they met as new members of the Saturday Night Live family. Steele wrote for SNL and championed Ferrell, who didn't immediately fit the SNL mold.

    After reading an email in which Harper, who has two children from a now-dissolved marriage, discussed his identity as a transgender woman, Ferrell thought a cross-country trip might be in order. The two travelers would determine how they might continue to relate to each other.

   For Steele, the trip also became a test run for a shifting persona, a chance to be seen in public in the kind of places she frequented as Andrew. While traveling solo across the country, Andrew indulged his fondness for dive bars, places not usually associated with gender diversity. 

   Could Harper bring a truck-stop sensibility to her  transgender evolution?

   Inevitably episodic, Will & Harper includes poignant and revealing moments. Ferrell approaches his friend with sincerity, and Steele responds in kind. The two share memories and laughs, as they navigate waters that aren't always comfortable. 

   Harper talks about the despair she felt prior to transitioning, but she approaches some of Ferrell’s questions with openness and good humor.

Her boobs? She says she loves them.

   At one point, Ferrell and Steele -- both sports fans -- attend an Indiana Pacers' game where they encounter Republican Governor Eric Holcomb, who's cordial even though he'd just signed legislation imposing restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors.  

    After the meeting, Ferrell learned about the ban. Oops.

    During a later stop, Steele and Ferrell visit an Oklahoma bar sporting a confederate flag and an impolite anti-Biden sign. Steele enters first; the bar’s patrons become friendlier once Ferrell makes his entrance. I guess celebrity presence opens doors.

     Steele talks about his masculine face and voice, and tries to learn new rules of the road. As a transgender woman, it might be ill-advised for Harper to walk alone down alleys, something Andrew might have done without giving it much thought. Such gender-related recalibrations add another layer of interest.   

   Director Josh Greenbaum (Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar) offers a goofy scene in an upscale Las Vegas restaurant that seems overly contrived, and in a trip that can't entirely avoid road fatigue, not every observation proves fascinating.

   But Ferrell and Harper risk a level of exposure that many would avoid, and the movie ultimately tells a story about an enduring friendship. Without calling attention to the fact that Ferrell and Steele are accompanied by a film crew, Will & Harper serves as a testament to a shared history that both want to preserve, even in the face of radical change.*

*Now in select theaters, Will & Harper begins streaming on Netflix on Sept. 27.

A hit-and-miss hunk of silliness

    Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo team in a movie that's vying for a dubious title: the most ridiculous movie ever made.

    Now, there's nothing wrong with ridiculousness and when a movie opts for so much unabashed silliness, we're obliged to give it a whirl, especially with the talented and often funny Wiig as one of the principals. Remember, too, Wiig and Mumolo wrote the screenplay for Bridesmaids.

    But as silly as Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar can be, it's only mildly amusing with one great gag involving culottes, women's pants that the movie considers to be a major fashion boo-boo.

    Wiig and Mumolo play a couple of Nebraska women who've lost their husbands, one to divorce, the other to death. After their jobs at a  furniture store vanish, this duo is expelled from the local Talking Club -- a preposterous small gathering of women with nothing to say. 

    What the hell? It's time for an adventure.

    So it's off to Florida, where Barb and Star become caught up in a plot that's being orchestrated by a woman with the whitest complexion in the western world. The chalky white Dr. Lady (also Wiig)-- wants to kill off the entire town of Vista Del Mar because of slights she suffered as a child.

  An Asian boy named YoYo (Reyn Doi) and a stooge who expects to marry Dr. Lady (Jamie Dornan) are part of  a plan to kill everyone in Vista Del Mar during the town's festive shrimp celebration.

   Once in Florida, Barb (Mumolo) and Star (Wiig) lose their buddy mojos and begin competing for the affections of Dornan's Edgar.

   Director Josh Greenbaum does his best to turn Vista Del Mar into a pastel paradise, a riot of blues and pinks punctuated by occasional musical numbers. 

    There are chuckles. The worst kind of tourists, Barb and Star are unable to resist shopping for the trashiest tchotchkes. Before an accommodations upgrade, Barb & Star check into a ramshackle motel where the desk clerk asks if they will require towels. Wiig, Mumolo, and Dornan are sandwiched into an off-color sight gag, and an occasional line reveals how bereft of awareness, the two can be.

    "A person's face says a lot about how they look,'' says Star, a supposed example of her uncanny wisdom.

     If a movie is going to be this outlandish, it better do it with abandon and without shame. A total commitment to silliness might be Barb & Star's saving grace. Full of raunch, the movie may not always work but it's far too preposterous to hate.

    Still, a step back suggests that Wiig and Mumolo came up with two cluelessly funny characters who may not be worth an entire movie, particularly one with a climax involving swarms of deadly mosquitos and a kid in a submarine.