


You have never seen Sandra Oh like this.
The “Sideways/Killing Eve/The Same Storm” dramatic star has given us a dose of deadpan, here and there. But in “Quiz Lady,” she vamps through a ditzy, unfiltered and comically mercurial turn as a never-quite-focused older sister without letting us sense one moment of restraint.
Oh turns star Awkwafina, in the title role, into the film’s straight woman in a story of sisters, racial stereotypes, family baggage and overcoming the little voices inside our heads that hold us back.
Not that Jenny, Oh’s failed actress turned life-coach, holds anything back. Ever.
The film is a sputtering, miss-or-hit affair that never finds its footing or a tone that works. Documentarian Jessica Yu (“Last Call at the Oasis,” “Misconception”) struggles with an uneven script peppered with low-hanging fruit gags, implausible set-ups and a random blast of drug humor, and completely blows the Big Finish that the title “Quiz” promises us. And no anti-climax, Big Cameo and seriously lame closing credits “what happened to” atones for that.
But we get what we can from Oh and Awkwafina’s chemistry, Will Ferrell’s sweetly amusing take on an idealized Alex Trebek-like game show host and trying-too-hard-and-it-shows performances by Jason Schwartzman as a smarmy contestant and Tony Hale as a one-joke “Ben Franklin Inn” proprietor in period costume, spectacles and bald cap.
Awkwafina is Anne, a solitary cubicle drone and loner who dotes on her pug and lives for her nightly ritual since childhood, “Can’t Stop the Quiz,” hosted by avuncular if a tad squishy host Tony McTeer (Ferrell) who “will be right here” tonight and every weeknight the wide-ranging quiz, complete with a “charades” segment, is on.
Anne rattles through answers to seemingly every bit of geography, geology, pop culture and sports history McTeer chirps out.
Oh’s Jenny, eight years or so older, catches up with Anne at a low point.
“Are you living in your car?”
“I’m focusing all my energy on manifesting the life I want!”
Flashbacks, scattered quite randomly throughout the film, show us the unhappy childhood that pointed them in different directions. Flaky Jenny ditched her dog and their gambling-addict mother years ago. Now she’s back and crashing at Anne’s place.
That’s when she notices her sister’s acumen at “Can’t Stop the Quiz.” That prompts Jenny to secretly record and post video of Anne’s savant-like trance prattling through answers. That video goes “viral,” and sets us on the path of seeing Anne on her favorite show, meeting her bow-tied idol, McTeer, and facing off with the show’s reigning champ, an insufferable McTeer wannabe played by Schwartzman and based on a certain “Jeopardy” champ turned host.
I’m reaching the point where I wonder how screenwriters (Jen D’Angelo, “Hocus Pocus 2”) can look themselves in the mirror in the morning knowing they’ve written the 479th “goes viral” screenplay twist of the past two years.
But sure, let’s double down on that with a “mom’s fled to Macau leaving gambling debts” that get Anne in trouble with Mom’s bookie, Ken (Jon ‘Dumbfoundead’ Park) who kidnaps her dog and sends cutesy-threats to her about what he’s doing to the pooch.
Ferrell is a delight in his few scenes, and Awkwafina is getting to be an old hand at the downtrodden, slumped-shouldered young woman with loneliness issues. It’s all most people let her play.
Holland Taylor has a moment — and only one — as a grumpy neighbor.
But this is Oh’s show, playing a flake too quick to yell “Racist,” but ready to play the “Eastern medicine,” “Old Chinese saying” cards and ask “Do you know how hard it is to be an Asian woman in this country?”
No, none of that is exactly “out there.” It’s all just familiar enough to mute the effect of one of the best things about a comedy that is desperate enough to toss in drug humor to give it edge, and struggles to make even that easy laugh come off.
Rating: R (Some Drug Use and Language)
Cast: Awkwafina, Sandra Oh, Jason Schwartzman, Holland Taylor, Tony Hale and Will Ferrell.
Credits: Directed by Jessica Yu, scripted by Jen D’Angelo. A 20th Century Studios release on Hulu.
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