Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Butter (2012)

Butter is a delightful little comedy that has most of its best jokes in the trailer but still manages to make you smile throughout. It is set around a 'Mastery in Butter Sculpting' competition which is very popular in Iowa. I just found out the competition has been a staple event at the Iowa State Fair for close to a century. Veteran sculptor Bob Pickler wants out but his much feared wife Laura is in no mood to give up just yet. There's a new kid in town with a knack for sculpting and more trouble arrives in the Pickler household in the form of a stripper. What follows is a surprisingly entertaining hour of satirical humor leading to a mushy climax.    

Destiny is a foster child who lives out of a suitcase in all her homes in the hope that her real mother would turn up. She is unbelievably good at things and doesn't give herself any credit for it. Her latest foster parents are quite surprised when she decides to take up a traditionally redneck vocation. Rob Corddry and Alicia Silverstone play her immensely likable foster parents who suddenly add a warmth to the film, making it even more palatable. 

As a political satire, the film pits a typically God-loving, semi-racist, conspicuously Republican Laura against a young African-American kid who has a way with words. Geddit? There's a dinner table scene, which later gets sculpted into butter, that reminded me of American Beauty. I suspect that was an intended nod.

The language is wonderfully profane, with most of the quickfire curses flying out from the pretty mouths of Garner and Wilde. Comedies usually stage a huge setup around sex scenes, but Butter takes you by surprise on more than one occasion with the unlikeliest of people getting intimate with each other.

One doesn't have to look closer to see that the film has many problems. Bob hooking up with Brooke (Wilde) makes sense and the narrative flow leads up to it, but Laura doing it with her one time flame Boyd Bolton was completely out of place. I am not justifying Bob's actions and condemning Laura's; it's just that whatever she did was not to get back at Bob but to use Boyd's services and get back at Destiny. Kaitlen Pickler, played Ashley Greene, has a half-baked character and goes nowhere. She's a typical teenager who hates her family but that's not the issue. Her little experimental fling with the stripper Brooke is, shall we say, pointless. Wait, what? I cannot believe I am complaining about the hot, girl on girl action. Never mind.

Wilde is a firecracker as the stripper Brooke; she is the funniest even though her character hangs very loosely to the story. The Jackman cameo, which is what it is, felt a tad inapposite as well. Actually, most of the actors felt underutilized as they didn't get enough screen-time. It always gets problematic when kids act like grown-ups. Destiny is a cool kid and all that but the final scene, with her advising Laura, was way too cheesy, or should I say, buttery.

The film's strength is its short run-time. At a little over 80 minutes, the film opens up quick, makes you chuckle and sometimes laugh, and wraps up before you worry about its problems. It is necessary for me to address these problems but I honestly didn't care much for them. I had a lot of fun watching it.