Streaming: Netflix
Warning:
Explicit Language
Nudity
Rating: R
Wine country is heartfelt comedy about a group of longtime friends who take a vacation to reunite and revisit their past experiences. This film was based on an actual trip SNL stars took together to celebrate a 50th birthday. Wine Country was produced and directed by Amy Poehler and the screenplay was written by Emily Spivey and Liz Cackowski. The film stars a long list of great comedians including, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Paula Pell, Emily Spivey, Jason Schwartzman and Tiny Fey. The film was released in 2019 for select theaters and was digitally released to streaming as well. Wine Country has a hilarious star cast, a huge budget, and yet the film still isn’t great. Wine Country was barely entertaining, and it was truly an unfortunate result of so much talent and resources. The casting was well done; however, the comedy was flat, and the writing just wasn’t good. It was a film that could have been great but turned out to be disappointing.
The only element of the film that was great is the casting. With an all-star cast, one would assume that the film was going to be entertaining and at least worth the time, however Wine Country just isn’t that. With the legendary actors included in this film, the acting just isn’t up to the standard that these women have brought to the table in the past. Individually they did fine but together the friend group came off as a pale version of their actual friendship making the friend group seem forced. Some parts of the acting are based on real interests, in the film the characters of Maya Rudolph and Emily Spivey have a conversation about how much they love the musician Prince. In real life, Rudolph performs with her friend Gretchen Lieberum in a Prince cover band. Prince himself once heard them sing and approved with a “thumbs up and hugs.” Little things like this are interesting to know outside of the film, however the film doesn’t allow the audience to dig too deep into the personalities of the characters, thus making the characters unrelatable.
The writing and the storyline are truly unfortunate. The writing attempted to make the film interesting with certain character’s troubles, however since there were six main characters, the film just didn’t have the time nor the capability to portray each character in depth. There are parts of the film that are heartfelt, and the film tries to play to the audience’s vulnerabilities with the concepts explored. But with that being said, the writing doesn’t bring the audience to the level they need to be to feel for the characters, nor does it allow the characters to come to life. Even though the film is almost 2 hours long, the storyline doesn’t entertain the audience in the way a comedy should and relies on a lot of old traditional humor that isn’t creative or different. Truly the writing was the absolute downfall of this film and it was unfortunate because it had all of the opportunities to be great.
The comedy was also unfortunate, with how many wonderful actors were cast for Wine Country, the jokes falling flat can only be blamed on the writing. The true personalities in the film didn’t show through and in result, none of the direction was going to help the actors find their comedy “magic.” The trailer shows all of the remotely funny parts in the film, otherwise it is just not entertaining. At one point of the film, I was thinking to myself, “I am just watching a bunch of rich women on vacation,” which is something an audience member shouldn’t be thinking while watching a comedy.
Overall Wine Country wasn’t entertaining, didn’t hit the jokes well, and wasted the time of the audience. The entire film seems like it was a drunk idea that came into fruition after they had the vacation the film is based on. It is so disappointing that Wine Country didn’t turn out to be good especially because all of these actors are usually wonderful and hilarious. Hopefully in the future they don’t make a film with this many big names cast in it so they can focus on the storyline in order to make a good movie. If you want to watch a bad movie that is probably better if you’re drunk, I highly recommend watching Wine Country.