Spin Me Round

.. who is both the co-writer and the star (!), has at least one great film in her. But this is definitely not it. This script is however remarkable for setting up so many interesting possibilities and then delivering on none of them. The end result is maybe a 10 min SNL skit, not a full length film. And it was particularly unwise to cast Plaza in a secondary role, because her natural charisma immediately has the viewer wondering why she is not starring?

This was disappointing. It felt pretty long / poorly edited, it wasn't snappy, it was rarely funny, it was often awkward, it just feels like the script wasn't good enough, the story isn't good enough, and I'm a fan of the absurd and the two female leads. But this was just weak, aimless, and ultimately frustrating.

Amber (Alison Brie) is a manager of an Italian restaurant chain in Bakersfield, California. It's an Olive Garden type situation. Amber wins a corporate retreat trip to Italy. Once she arrives, suspicious situations arise. She is invited by the beloved company owner Nick Martucci (Alessandro Nivola) on a personal trip. She is befriended by his assistant Kat (Aubrey Plaza).

Everybody is capable of doing a bit of quirky and that's what happens. It's mildly funny in its quirkiness. Alison Brie and Aubrey Plaza are great. I also love Zach Woods. These are great comedic performers. This has great potential, but the mystery needs some work. It needs some tension. The mystery needs to start sooner and be more involved. The writing needs work.

Near to the end, the Alison Brie character says "WTF is going on?" and most viewers will have asked the same thing about an hour earlier. The film starts off fairly predictably but once the action moves to Tuscany, no-one, except the above mentioned character, behaves like normal people behave. And not in a funny, zany-comedy way, they simply become progressively more weird.

OK, you think, at any moment now, the hidden under-story will reveal itself and things will start to make sense. But it doesn't, the plot just becomes increasingly illogical, as if the writers (Brie included) concocted it one Saturday evening after several bottles of wine, with no idea how the story would end.

Having said all that, it's not so frustrating that you don't see it through to the finale, it is set in Italy in the sunshine after all. But you will probably stare at the closing credits, as I did, thinking so what was that all about?

In the lightest and sometimes strangest comedy of the year, Spin Me Round, a manager of Italian Grille (think Olive Garden), Amber (Alison Brie), wins a trip to a corporate immersion program in Italy, enthusiastic about vacating her humdrum life in Bakersfield, Ca. Other winner managers of varying eccentricities are played by top-drawer comic actors Tim Heidecker, Debby Ryan, Zach Woods, Ayden Mayeri, and Molly Shannon.

Her fantasies are of adventure and maybe hookup, maybe love. She gets all three but not as innocent as she thought they might be. Although this is a whimsical comedy, underneath lies writer/director Jeff Baena and writer Alison Brie's satire of middle-class naivete, ambitions, and the plague of sexual harassment. We can best understand the depression of a pandemic that seemed to deflate our most wishful sailing to a place of dreams.

Given that the exciting adventure of her life may be applying a commercial Alfredo sauce at work to pasta and seeing it "spin around" the microwave, it's easy to see her being a victim of the rich, handsome chain owner, Nick (Alessandro Nivola). That she doesn't see lust in the eyes of American expats at a party, who view her as easy pickings, is about the best indicator of her vulnerability.

That she doesn't pick up on the cheesy way the party host (Fred Amisen) lip-synchs to "The Lady in Red" as she enters the party in her crimson gown is a further hint that Spin Me Around is light fare, and she is not prepared for the absurdity.

With the equally stereotypical Euro-thriller music from composer Pino Donagio, the audience is prepared for the satire of post-Fellini decadence with a dash of humor. The Agatha Christie-like murder speculations lend a further light tone to a story that could have gone into The Twilight Zone.

Spin Me Around is a beautifully photographed bit of fluff, just right for the end of the summer, a pause to reflect on our dreams as they invariably disappoint. Reality bites.