Screenplay Written by Andrew Dodge
Directed by Jason Bateman
** (two stars)
As much as I love my day to day profession as a preschool teacher and value the worldview and companionship of my young charges, I do have to say that there are times in wish I have been confronted with some spirited (i.e. bratty) little things and I am internally fighting my own tongue from saying the words that I really wish that I could say. This past year has seen more than its share of those moments, truth be told.
So, in that respect, "Bad Words," the directorial debut from actor Jason Bateman, provided some vicarious thrills as we are given a story featuring a misanthropic 40 year old man extolling some unquestionably and unapologetically vicious and vulgar bon mots to children here and there. And as funny as the film occasionally is, "Bad Words" unfortunately was just yet another one of those R rated movies that talks a good game but fails in its overall execution, seemingly for fear of really alienating potential audiences. Which is a shame because there's strong material as well as a concept here that really could have struck some truly dangerous comedic gold.
Jason Bateman stars as the aforementioned 40 year old, Guy Trilby, an embittered warranty proofreader (great touch) who embarks upon a bizarre plan for personal redemption and revenge. Discovering a loophole in the rules and regulations of the National Quill Spelling Bee (think Scripps), Guy, who is indeed an 8th grade dropout, enters the competition, much to the chagrin of the competitive children, their parents and the Quill administrators, including Dr. Bernice Deagan (Allison Janney), the director of the spelling bee.
Over the course of the film, Guy is acquainted with fellow competitor Chaitanya Chopra (the charming and sweet voiced Rohan Chand), a 10 year old who doggedly attempts to befriend Guy despite his vehement protests. Guy is also accompanied on his quest by the intrepid Jenny Widgeon (Kathryn Hahn), a fledgling reported for an on-line publication, who is desperately trying to discover the reasons behind Guy's unorthodox plan for a potential story.
For a directorial debut feature, Jason Bateman immediately shows that he definitely knows his way behind the camera. He proves himself to be a sly director who never treats the comedy with a sledgehammer. Like his own acting, especially as we have witnessed on television's "Arrested Development," Bateman is a master of the deadpan, the slow burn, the expert sense of timing, the quiet pause that leads to a stinging comedic slam dunk.
The opening sequences of "Bad Words" indeed displayed that very admirable skill in a film that does need to strike a certain balance if it is going to work at all. The completely inappropriate put downs he delivers to several children in the film, including young Chaitanya whom Guy occasionally refers to as "Slumdog," are all achieved with an inexplicable deftness that makes you laugh out loud when you would have otherwise stoned the theater screen. Jason Bateman makes even the most questionable material work with a strong sense of underplaying each moment with a certain stealthiness. It's almost as if Jason Bateman has channeled someone like Clint Eastwood, but he uses words and language as his deadly bullets.
With regards to the usage of language, one aspect of "Bad Words" that I also enjoyed very much was its usage of difficult vocabulary so that the film's spelling bee sequences not only pack a punch due to the words that the children are being asked to spell, especially as they at times relate to the plot and characters, the sequences also carry the same sense of weight and quiet thrills as if you were indeed watching the annual Scripps event. And then, Bateman, via Guy's shenanigans, very cleverly turns those events on their heads into the kind of television programming that you almost wish Scripps would sometimes devolve into just for the sheer sense of anarchy.
And yet, I don't think that "Bad Words" goes nearly as far as it needs to.
As I have expressed to you on this site in the past, it truly does take quite a bit to offend me, especially when it comes to actual language and profanity. That being said, I did appreciate how Bateman adn Screenwriter Andrew Dodge didn't litter the film with all manner of vulgarities just for the sake of doing so. To use profanity in the best way possible, Bateman and Ddge figured out ways to make the bad words in question stick out to make that comedic punch instead of just having them all flail around from one end of the film to the other, therefore having an affect that is numbing to listen to.
Even so, the film is called "Bad Words" and it is R rated and it does carry the plot that it has so...just go for it! Where I deeply appreciate and even love some lighter comedies when they posses a more serious core, I have the adverse affect when we have a more serious or at least darker toned film and then the core is as soft as a marshmallow. That is the problem which sinks "Bad Words" as we are just relegated with odes to friendship and loneliness that are easy sentiments and feel completely under-cooked so they really do not pack a dramatic punch at all. The story itself often falls to formula and I really believe that you will be able to spot Guy's mysterious reason for entering the spelling bee instantly and again, it is presented in the softest conceivable fashion.
And then, there is the character of Guy Trilby himself, a character who could have been a comedic smart bomb but proves himself to be something that is actually quite innocent despite the foul language and ill tempered persona he elicits. For this aspect of the film, this was a quality in which I thought that the filmmakers were maybe more concerned with likability rather than having the audience understand the character's behavior regardless of whether we liked him or not.
Take a film like Director Jason Reitman's scathing "Young Adult" (2011) which featured Charlize Theron as a wholly unlikable creation and Reitman, in collaboration with his Screenwriter Diablo Cody, made absolutely no concession to having the audience begin to like her in the end. In fact, Theron's character becomes even more intolerable by that film's conclusion. But, we understand her completely and that made for an especially bitter and unquestionably bold comedy that left noticeable bruises.
By contrast, "Bad Words" doesn't even leave the traces of scratches let alone bruises as the film seems to just want the audience to see Guy's softer side and realize that he's not really such a bad fellow after all. And for that, the film lost me to a degree as the film's mid-section began to drag and just exist as kind of an R rated version of "Dennis The Menace" with Bateman as a particularly tart tongued Mr. Wilson. For me, that is just not enough to sustain my interest on a comedic level or even on a dramatic level, as I just felt the film needed to be just that much tougher and even nastier in order to provide the inner pathos with some real anguish, which in turn would make the comedy more brutally funny. Despite the language and a few questionable situations, "Bad Words" felt to actually be too safe for its own good
Granted I will concede that perhaps "Bad Words" may be more than vulgar enough for some of you. Perhaps, it may even be too vulgar and foul mouthed. But for my personal tastes, "Bad Words" just felt to be de-fanged. It's not a bad film or even an unmemorable one as Jason Bateman has proven himself to me that he just may be a filmmaker to keep an eye on. But as it stands, "Bad Words" is not nearly bad enough.
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