When I first heard that Olde English was making a movie, I was thrilled. When I saw the trailer, I was ecstatic. And when I actually saw the film, I was never disappointed - it lived up to my expectations and more. It's a movie written by five friends who haven't worked together in a while, each penning fifteen pages. Here's the catch, though - each writer could only see the previous five pages of the script. This leads to strange, whimsical, and often hilarious twists and turns in the plot and characterization. All this chaos held together by interviews conducted by the director who had given the writing assignment in the first place.
If the writers were a little less funny, or knew each other a little less well, The Exquisite Corpse Project could have been a cute novelty or passable experiment. With wit like Olde English's, though, it manages to be laugh-out-loud funny all the way through, with surprisingly heartwarming moments peppered in between scenes. It's fun just to watch the friends banter through their writing and interviews (such as Joel's writing of a sucktastic fifteen pages just to spite Ben, the director), and by the end, you're aware that you just witnessed friendships evolve. That is, between picnic scenes and Not-Dogs and snake venom and ironic mustaches.
Watching the film, you feel like you know a little bit more than every writer for having watched the segment before theirs, but you also feel like an insider, like you're right there with them at the final read through or trying to decipher the five pages they've been given. It's a collaborative project, not just for the writers, but for the audience as well. Sitting in the theater and watching the crazy plot twists unfold, we had just as much fun watching and laughing through the movie as it looks like Olde English did making it.
