Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic

I don't care that Sarah Silverman dates a painfully unfunny slob like Jimmy Kimmel or that she often says offensive things just for the sake of being offensive. Ever since her short stint on "Saturday Night Live", I knew she was a brilliant comedienne. Part of her appeal is her natural good looks and charming nature. She seems sweet and innocent, but what comes out of her mouth is often filthy and offensive. She delivers it straight with a style that is both perky and deadpan. She has a contradictory self-deprecating confidence that makes her rather unique in the world of stand-up comedy.

There's some misguided musical numbers and "skits" that are never quite as funny as they are conceptually. It's the stand-up bit that had me rolling in the aisles. Sarah pokes fun at everything from AIDS to the Holocaust to 9/11 and she wears her badge of political incorrectness with pride. In terms of her racial humor, she's more than just the white Jewish female version of Dave Chappelle, she's downright hilarious, and her unique delivery is what makes the off-color jokes go down so smooth. The film is brief at 72 minutes, so be sure to stay for the credits as they contain some funny bits.

Of course there is nothing that could possibly survive between Lenny Bruce and Joan Rivers. That's why Sarah Silverman is unique. She reminds you of others but she's not like anybody else. The outrageous boldness of her comedy is the classiest piece of gross vulgarity I've ever came across. "60 million would be unforgivable" I was gasping and laughing without being able to stop. Dangerous stuff. Wonderful stuff. She's pretty like one of Charlie Chaplin's daughters. Awkwardly so, making the comedy all the more refreshing, shockingly so. I'm buying a few DVDs of "Jesus is Magic" and sending them anonymously to some friends and relatives. Oh yes, my targets deserve the side splitting pain inflicted by this superb Silverwoman.

Sarah Silverman--with her gummy smile, coltish stance, and clear voice which bubbles up from deep within her chest--wants to come on like a huggable shock comedienne, yet she's more performance artist than stand-up personality. Cleverly and carefully (one may say 'precisely') dropping taboo words into her stories, Silverman gets laughs by pretending to lead the audience in one direction and then undercutting those expectations with a surprising low-keyed zinger. Silverman doesn't overwork a punchline--which are often nestled in the context of her stories anyhow--although she returns to older topics too often. Also, she relies far too much on pseudo-cute facial expressions and aw-shucks body language to soften the blows of her words, though the topics (9/11, the Holocaust, AIDS, vaginal sex versus anal sex) are tiptoed through in a facetious yet frisky manner. The fantasy edits, imagining Sarah in different manners of celebrity, work well, better than the purposefully-wooden prologue and epilogue with friends. Still, one expects to laugh more with such touchy material. Silverman is so laid-back and blasé, it's clear to viewers she is giving them a made-up creation. Other shock comics manage to make audiences feel as if they are hearing something true, but this personality that Silverman is displaying (playful, naughty, grounded, unaffected) is unabashedly artificial. This is entirely deliberate on Silverman's part, yet is tends to render her act phony: smoke and mirrors prodding at the national funny bone. *1/2 from ****

Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic (2005), written by Sarah Silverman and directed by Liam Lynch, was shown at the High Falls Film Festival in Rochester, New York.

Sarah Silverman is a unique comedian, and the movie is unique as well. Silverman is strikingly beautiful, and startlingly filthy-mouthed. The result is comedy that is not actually funny per se, but is funny because of the incredible contrast between what you expect and what Silverman delivers.

I've noticed that most reviewers can't refrain from quoting some lines from her performance. The problem with that practice is that if you read enough reviews, you've basically seen the movie. I'm going to refrain from revealing any part of her act. I'll just say that Silverman makes jokes about matters that society assumes can't be funny--9/11, racism, world hunger, AIDS.

Silverman delivers her act in a neutral, confidential way. The contrast between Silverman's straightforward, level manner and the nature of her comedy is what makes her unique.

My guess is that Silverman's humor would wear thin on repeated viewing. However, for the 72 minutes of this movie, she's very, very funny.

Notes:

Silverman was profiled in the 10/24/05 issue of The New Yorker magazine, in an article titled "Quiet Depravity."

Stay for the credits. They contain some funny bits.

I've never seen a stand-up comedy hour get national theatrical distribution before, but I know why this one did. Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic is some of the most subversive, brutal, politically-incorrect, and brilliant stand-up comedy out there. Silverman splices up the stand-up routine with silly and obnoxious musical numbers, and it works. Though it may not make $1 million at the box office, Jesus Is Magic will undoubtedly become a comedy classic along the lines of Eddie Murphy: Raw and Bill Cosby: Himself.

What makes Silverman so ballsy is fearless take on race ("The best time to conceive, of course, is when you're a black teenager"), religion ("The only time religion matters is when you have kids and you're deciding what to teach them. If my boyfriend and I ever have a kid, we'll just be honest with it. We'll say that mommy is one of God's chosen people, and daddy believes that Jesus is magic!"), rape ("I was raped by a doctor… which is kind of bittersweet for a Jew"), the Holocaust ("The Holocaust would never had happened if black people lived in Germany in the 1930s and 40s… well, it wouldn't have happened to Jews"), and 9/11 ("I think American Airlines' new slogan should be: We were the first to hit the twin towers") – every topic you're NOT supposed to joke about. Obviously these jokes are better on screen than read in print.

Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic is comic genius. Your cheeks will hurt from laughing so hard. It's the perfect cure for the holiday blues.