Based on the eponymous cult Comedy Central show canceled over five years ago, Strangers with Candy brings Second City alums Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, and director Paul Dinello back for another hysterically bizarre semester.
A fat-suit-wearing, grimacing Sedaris is Jeri Blank, a 47-year-old recovering drug addict, ex-con, and, er, high schooler. Jeri goes on a mission to win the science fair when the doctor notes that her return to teen hell is having a positive affect on the recovery of her comatose father (Dan Hedaya). Her project: cure him. If all of this sounds far-fetched and surreal, you've got the point. It takes someone as rubber-faced and garishly manic as Amy Sedaris to pull it off. Full of resolutely un–PG-13 jokes at Blank's expense—“you're a fat goblin,” one kid taunts; “I know, I have eyes,” his mother replies offhandedly—Candy isn't pretty, but like someone tripping on a public staircase, it's hard not to laugh.
Much of SWC's charm lies in the performances. Colbert and Dinello are solid as science teacher Chuck Noblet and art teacher Geoffrey Jellineck, lovers just trying to figure out what they mean to each other. There are also high-profile cameos, including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Allison Janney, Matthew Broderick, and a particularly amusing Sarah Jessica Parker, Sedaris's Sex in the City colleague. But it's really all about Sedaris, eye twitch and all, and you kind of miss her when she's not onscreen.
It is hard to adapt a 30-minute show into an 87-minute feature, and the film does lose steam about halfway through; it doesn't fully realize its after-school-special-parody premise. But even during the less-funny second half, Sedaris's uncompromisingly nutty turn as a “boozer, user, and a loser” will have you smiling till the end. Neither fans of the TV series nor SWC newbies with an appreciation of dark, absurd comedy will be disappointed. This is one unmarked van you just might want to take a ride with.
—Monica A. Reyhani
Amy Sedaris as Jeri Blank in Strangers With Candy.
Copyright © 2008 Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc.