(2009)1.5Josh RalskeIt's clearly meant to be seen as "irreverent" -- it's right there in the press notes -- but it's hard to figure out what's really irreverent about Miss March. Certainly, it's gross, and maybe even a bit shocking, but these filmmakers are smart enough to realize that raising the bar on crassness in teen sex comedies is a zero-sum game. And it's hardly subversive to mock a fat, heavily accented Latina orderly, or a crude African-American rapper, or even people with epilepsy. Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, who wrote, directed, and star in the film, have some talent in all three areas, and the film does generate some laughs. They're good at stretching out a setup and building to an over-the-top payoff, but too much of their energetically scattershot humor never pays off. And there are more troubling issues here. It's puzzling that a film that reveres the troglodyte pre-feminist "philosophy" of Hugh Hefner (who appears as his exalted self) and Playboy magazine would also slam the backward sexual politics of popular rap music, but that's in line with the film's general racial insensitivity. One feels embarrassed for Craig Robinson, who has demonstrated his talent on The Office, but here plays a hulking stereotype who (along with the sexually aggressive African-American groupie who flies out the window of a speeding bus, apparently to her death, in one unpleasant gag) bears the brunt of the film's most hateful humor. Meanwhile, the film's heroes, despite their character flaws and frequently despicable behavior, essentially end up with everything they ever wanted. "There's a Bunny deep down inside every woman," might have been an inspiring refrain in the 1950s. Here, it's another reminder that however "irreverent" these filmmakers might claim to be, Miss March is really just a good old-fashioned mean-spirited celebration of white male privilege.
Directors Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore collaborate on this comedy centering on the bizarre experiences of a man who awakens from a four-year coma to discover that his girlfriend has become a Playboy centerfold.
