Those figuring that they’d seen every possible screen-featured mangled male genital sight-gag receive quite the surprise in Miss March, the co-directorial debut of multi-hyphenates Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, co-founders of the sketch comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’ Know, and its same-named IFC television show.
Basically a teen sex road comedy recasting of Dumb & Dumber, the film centers around two high school friends — sensible, sensitive good guy Eugene Bell (Cregger) and his crass, wild-eyed pal Tucker Cleigh (Moore, above left). His older brother’s life having been ruined in exaggerated fashion by premarital sex, Eugene has taken a pledge of abstinence until marriage. His girlfriend Cindi (Raquel Alessi, above center), however, is getting a bit antsy, so Eugene promises that on prom night they’ll do the deed. Before he can seal the deal, however, Eugene takes a tumble down a staircase and ends up in a coma.
Cut to four years later. Tucker, who has since hooked up with Candace (Molly Stanton), an epileptic high school classmate who previously wouldn’t give him the time of day, wakes up Eugene with a baseball bat to the head, and shortly thereafter discovers that the previously virginal Cindi is a Playmate. Seeking “closure” and/or sex for his pal, Tucker convinces Eugene that a drive across the country to the Playboy Mansion is a good idea, so off they go. For help in gaining access to Hugh Hefner’s pad, Tucker turns to a former high school classmate turned superstar rapper (Craig Robinson, above right) who insistently goes by the moniker Horsedick.MPEG, a phrase I’m more than a bit leery of Googling. After all sorts of zany misadventures, and being chased by Candace’s murderously vengeful fireman brother (don’t ask), the fellas end up in Beverly Hills, reconnecting with Cindi and discovering a bit about themselves in the process.
Following on the heels of The House Bunny, Miss March is the second movie in the past year to which Playboy magnate Hefner has lent his image and branded lifestyle, and it’s easily the lesser of the two projects, I’m afraid — and not only because of the fact that you can clearly see him reading cue cards during a long monologue in his cameo as a mentor to Tucker. The comedy here is overwhelmingly of the willfully crude male-fantasy variety, with Horsedick.MPEG’s party bus shenanigans and misogynistic rap anthems, and super-horny lesbians picking up the hitchhiking guys, explaining that they need someone to drive their car so that they can suck and fuck each other in the back seat without losing any travel time. This would work a bit better if it were more smoothly integrated as ironic counterpoint, but the movie’s female characters are all so wholly underdeveloped that it brings a few scenes to a screeching halt.
Miss March‘s anarchic tone and wholehearted embrace of straight-faced obliviousness — especially by Moore, who employs a hairstyle that looks like it belongs at a medieval-themed restaurant, and righteously channels early-era Jim Carrey — recalls Dumb & Dumber, as mentioned. In this sense, the movie works as a fairly harmless, double-f rental laffer for its wheelhouse demographic. But, having refashioned the script from a story idea credited to Dennis Haggerty, Ryan Homchick and Thomas Mimms, Cregger and Moore’s directorial chops aren’t slick enough to mask either limited production means and/or scenes that are open-ended, and not self-contained. Additionally, there isn’t a rigorous enough application of the movie’s own interior logic: At first Eugene, his muscles atrophied, can’t walk or even control his bowels (yes, explosive defecation gets the comedic-rule-of-three treatment), but later he’s more or less fine. Playing this stumble-bum physical malady for laughs is perfectly legitimate within the context of the outrageous premise, but doing so only partially, until it’s convenient to discard, undercuts the rest of the wild tone of heightened absurdity.
Oh, and the genital joke? Well, far be it from me to ruin things, but, in the tradition of There’s Something About Mary and the recent Step Brothers, it involves a prosthetic. And a straw. If your curiosity is irreversibly piqued, then Miss March might indeed be for you. (Fox Searchlight, R, 89 minutes)