Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic

I saw this movie on opening night last night with moderately high expectations and not a lot of knowledge about Sarah Silverman. I left amused but disappointed. Ms. Silverman is entertainingly acerbic, but ALL of this movie's strong moments come from her stand-up, and the air completely goes out of the film when she goes into her mediocre, poorly integrated songs and set pieces. (And what's up with her repeating the same punchless lines over and over in her songs?)

In the end, "Jesus Is Magic" bogs down under the weight of its own pretension. It would seem better as an ordinary cable special, especially if you removed the fluff and focused on her stage show. The movie wants to present Silverman as something more than a mere comedian, but unfortunately fails -- the haphazard presentation and (especially) the atrocious-looking digital video (I challenge you to find a single sharply focused object in the entire movie) make it unworthy of a cinematic event.

In other words, it's worth seeing, but wait for cable or DVD.

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.

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 is subtle, provocative, and disturbing. Her guileless, deadpan parody of profane ideas is like a naive child faithfully repeating something horrifying that she overheard her parents whisper. Reviewers who compare her to Andrew Dice Clay don't understand her comedy. Clay pandered to his audience's bigotry without irony, telling his audience what they wanted to believe but were afraid to say themselves.

A more apt comparison would be to Carroll O'Connor: a gifted writer, comedian, and actor. Sarah Silverman presents a persona that makes people squirm; she creates a dissonance between her apparent lack of anger or malice and her socially unacceptable material. To accuse her of racism, sexism, homophobia, internalized anti-Semitism, or going for cheap shock is to miss the point. Holy cows make the best hamburger, but it's easy to choke on if you're laughing.

Silverman forces audiences to confront their own gut reactions about unacceptable ideas without providing anyone easy to blame. She is a polite, educated, attractive young woman. To hear her say things we refuse to believe polite, educated, attractive young women think or would even admit is disturbing.

The Anti-Defamation League, the National Organization of Women, NAACP, and the Human Rights Campaign won't laud her as a transgressive comedian who forces audiences to confront their own unacknowledged bigotry. Sarah Silverman is not a social crusader; she is a comedian who tickles your funny bone with a sharp spear. She could preface all her material with, "Can you believe there are idiots who think, '(assume character, insert content),'" to avoid controversy. Gutted by incorporated disclaimers, her comedy would lose its ability to induce awkward guilt in her audience. The power of her comedy is its ravaging of social beliefs that we are all supposed to share.

No comedy is universal, but hers is biting, subversive, disturbing, and fascinating. Instead of laughing at her content, you laugh at the attitudes she portrays and worry if you should find them funny. You either miss the irony of her comedy or you have to appreciate her genius as an actor, writer, comic, and social critic.

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.