Like A Boss Review: Faux Feminism

Rating:

Director: Miguel Arteta

Cast: Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne, Salma Hayek, Billy Porter, Jennifer Coolidge, Lisa Kudrow, Ari Graynor, Natasha Rothwell, Jessica St. Clair, Jacob Latimore

Rating: 15

Running Time: 1 hour 24 minutes

Release Date: 21st February 2020

Full disclosure: I’m a Tiffany Haddish fan. I’ll watch her in any film she does and I’ll watch whatever interview she has done via YouTube. Before seeing Like A Boss, I had already watched promotional interviews and skits for this film with its three leading actresses; Haddish, Rose Byrne and Salma Hayek. When I was sitting in the cinema screen waiting for the film to start, I heard someone very loudly say “this film, at the most, is 2 stars.” I thought to myself, don’t be so assuming, I’m so sick of people discrediting films with women at the centre of them as not being worthy and being a genre all of their own, there’s space for all kinds of films in this industry, watching what may be considered, at first glance, a glossy comedy for escapism and pleasure doesn’t devoid it of value. As you can see, I really wanted to like this film and prove this guy (and it was a man) wrong. Unfortunately I can’t. This film is, at the most, 2 stars.

We meet best friends and beauty business partners Mia (Haddish) and Mel (Byrne) on the brink of losing their beauty store and two loyal employees, Barret (Billy Porter) and Sydney (Jennifer Coolidge) to debt whilst also facing judgement from their close circle of friends for not settling down. Then enters the wildly successful beauty CEO Claire Luna (Hayek) who wants to buy their company. Mia is resistant but Mel persuades her it’s the only way to save their business. Claire Luna gave Mia and Mel a 51% stake in the company but aims to reduce that by pitting these two best friends against each other and so the predictable cinematic portrayal of a female-friendship-fallout ensues.

It’s hard not to liken this film to other failed attempts to capture a souring friendship; the writers (Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly) seemed to be aiming for the brilliance of Bridesmaids with their “risqué” sexualised jokes and scenes rich in sentimentality but their writing is no match for the likes of Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo and instead they ended up with something closer to Bride Wars. Unfortunately these two male writers couldn’t imitate female friendship or the way a lot of women talk amongst each other. They did however imitate scenes from other films: Bridesmaids’ food related incident and Miss Congeniality 2’s Proud Mary musical number. Everything in this film felt faux and hollow; sometimes in cinema that works but not when a film is trying to ground one foot in reality.

The thing about Like A Boss which annoyed me the most, was the reductive way women’s lives are represented. Mia and Mel have a circle of friends (played by an excellent trio of actresses: Natasha Rothwell, Ari Graynor and Jessica St. Clair) and their place in the film seems to be that of a supportive but also guilt and pressure inducing force to remind Mia and Mel that they (apparently, because of society’s standards) shouldn’t be house-sharing in their 30s, they should be in committed, monogamous relationships and they should be thinking about having children. Mia and Mel protest that they’ve chosen to focus on their career. And there lies the problem; Like A Boss presents itself in many ways throughout the film to be feminist (you know, in the Hollywood, depoliticised, corporate sense), it constantly references feminist tropes and feminism is even verbally referenced yet the writers present these very limited options for women – a family or a career or a balancing act of both as if these are the only narrative options for our lives, as if there isn’t colour to life in all those places outside these areas. What if we didn’t or don’t “focus” on either? Call me a killjoy but I’m bored of this stuff.

Related post: The Call Of The Wild Review: An Entertaining Watch with Spectacular Cinematography

I was expecting so much more from the director Miguel Arteta. His work includes independent successes such as The Good Girl, Beatriz at Dinner and Duck Butter but perhaps he could only do so much with this storyline and script. The cast is brilliant however the material doesn’t match up to them and they have mostly been typecast. I do wonder, why did anybody want to tell this story? There are laughs in Like A Boss (my 2 stars are for those times I did laugh), especially from Billy Porter who flawlessly executes a memorable scene with his talent for physical humour. You could watch Like A Boss on a Sunday afternoon at home and get enjoyment from this hour and a half but why not just watch Bridesmaids again instead?

Will you be watching the film when it arrives in cinemas? As always, we like to know your thoughts, so leave a comment below, tweet us @filmandtvnow or drop us a comment on our Facebook page.

Please follow and like us: