Before there was the movie, Strangers With Candy was a TV show. The series ran for three seasons on Comedy Central, and according to the press kit, has a loyal cult following. The original team, Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert, is back together again on this project. Fans will recognize Flatpoint High and Jerri Blank, a 50-year-old ex-prostitute, ex-junkie, and ex-con played by Sedaris. The plot, which revolves around Jerri's audacious return to high school to win a science fair and revive her comatose father, barely merits mention. Gaging from the hearty laughter in the screening room, I am going to guess fans are going to be happy.
However, I will admit that I have never heard of the TV show, and perhaps that is why I found Strangers With Candy spectacularly unfunny and unpleasant to sit through. Obnoxious and rude does not equal funny. Politically incorrect does not equal funny. Frequent celebrity cameo appearances (Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alison Janey, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kristen Johnson, and Ian Holm) and mean-spirited jokes at the expense of others: also not funny. Which sums up Strangers With Candy. Falling, by the way, very often is funny. Unfortunately, no one trips, falls down steps, or bangs into street poles in this film.
