Tribeca: Courteney Cox Delivers a Dud in 'Just Before I Go'
Monday, April 28, 2014 at 9:00AM Glenn reporting from Tribeca
Oh Courteney!
Courteney Cox looms large in my personal history as a central figure in two long running franchises (Friends and Scream) that played a major role in my teenage (and further) life. So it takes a lot for me to dislike something Courteney Cox does so violently as I did her directorial debut Just Before I Go. I went in to her new film intrigued and with some mild expectations that she’d be able to transfer the strange, often very dark humor of her current TBS sitcom Cougar Town into something somewhat funny. This new film’s elements of suicide, homophobia, racism, and other eye-raising topics certainly lend themselves to a wicked, taboo-pushing comedy, but what she and screenwriter David Flebotte have delivered instead is one of the most offensive pieces of trash to have come out in quite some time. [more...]
Courteney Cox, who does not star, on set directing Just Before I Go
The mostly inoffensive gags about camel-toe, boners and sassy black women are unfunny but hardly film-destroying. What makes Just Before I Go abhorrent is its progression of anti-women jokes that pointedly insult any female that isn’t white, skinny and of a standard level of beautiful. Aghast I was when one female character, a married mother of five who has ‘let herself go’, utters to her high school sweetheart.
Kindness to a big girl is like a dinner bell. If you ring it we’ll always come running.”
Later in the film the Olivia Thirlby character is asked, “Why are you single? You’re beautiful", as if being beautiful is her only asset, and the only thing that matters in finding love.
Seann Williams Scott headlines as a suicidal man returning to his hometown
And when it’s not betraying Cox and Flebotte’s apparently rigid standards of feminine approval, it finds other ways to offend: there’s a terrible gay bashing storyline that places the blame on the victim; a plot line involving an emotional domestic abuser (played for laughs) who utters repetitive "retard", homophobiv and race jokes that are – pardon the pun – off-colour and out of place; and an endless stream of jokes about female masturbation that make a mockery of the female body and sexual harassment. There’s a way to make vicious comedy funny, but the tone-deaf, bland sitcom direction, and a messy narrative make the film – and the audience – languish in a hell of its own making.
Deplorable, ugly and mean. Since seeing it, it has jockeyed with Victor Levin’s 5 to 7 (also starring Olivia Thirlby, and reviewed by Diana) as the worst film of the festival and perhaps the worst I am likely to see this year. F
Reader Comments (4)
This sounds like a film that would make Monica roll her eyes :p
Courtney cox should work with woody allen!
but yeah sucks to hear her movie is balls. didn't even know she was directing anything. maybe next time cox!
I can't comment on the quality of the movie because i didn't see it. but whenever she directs episodes of COUGARTOWN it always seems off. the jokes don't land as well and the rhythm of the scenes seems slower. whenever i think to myself, this episode feels different, sure enough: directed by courtney cox always appears in the credits.
I didn't see the movie.
But this is the internet, where everyone is an expert on everything. Therefore, I declare my comment to be insightful and correct .(slams hand on table - THUNK!)
Seriously beautiful women shouldn't do comedy. Comedy stems from pain; the pain of rejection, loneliness, etc. Courtney did not have her MDR of rejection as a child so she doesn't know the pain and drama that we mere mortals know.
She needs to find a Woody Allen type co-author to play John Lennon against her sickening sweet Paul McCartney. From what I read, her movie deals with suicide. This subject requires two things from a director:
1. Sensitivity to emotional devastation.
You can't fake the feeling of "nowhere to go". You can't just sit in a chair and try to imagine what it would be like feel that. Apparently, Cox tries, and, according to most reviews, fails miserably.
2. Comic anger.
Many good comedians do comedy to get back at people who have hurt them in the past. It's the equivalent of grabbing a rifle and shooting into a crowd while shouting, "You think you can hurt me and just walk away? Ha! We'll see who gets the last laugh, suckers." Mel Brooks does this all the time. However, few people have his comic ability, and I doubt Cox has honed her comic chops enough to pull off Mel's tricks.
That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it! lol