Vengeance (2022, dir. B. J. Novak, US) by Kymm Zuckert
“Abilene didn’t die, she was murdered.”
“What?”
“And the two of us are gonna avenge her death.”
“So, as like a personal boundary, I don’t avenge deaths...”
Unlike some of these movies, where you see the trailers one million times until you get sick of them, I saw the trailer for Vengeance one single solitary time, but that was all I needed, because it definitely looked like my kind of movie.
It looked great, but ended up being way better than I expected! The best of all possible outcomes.
B.J. Novak writes, directs, and stars as Ben, a writer for the New Yorker (not New York Magazine, a running gag), and kind of a shallow jerk, which is, of course, Novak’s brand. He is the kind of guy who only hooks up with girls, never anything serious, but then he gets a call from a guy in Texas, sobbingly telling him that Ben’s girlfriend died. Turns out that Abby, one of the girls Ben casually slept with a few times, was under the impression that they were a couple, and told her family that.
Ben cannot figure out a way to not fly to Texas and go to the funeral, so he does, and while he is there, the dead girl’s brother, Ty (Boyd Holbrook), tells him that Abby didn’t O.D., that she was murdered, and that he and Ben are going to avenge her death.
Ben decides to make a podcast out of the search for Abby’s killer, or the fact that there was no killer, and how it’s all about America. For awhile, the show is called “Dead White Girl,” amusingly. Issa Rae plays Ben’s podcast producer back in NY, and she is just great.
Ben stays with Abby’s family; along with Ty, there’s her mom, (J. Smith Cameron), sisters, (Isabella Amara and Dove Cameron), granny, (Louanne Stephens), and baby brother, (Eli Bickel), all of whom start out as Texan stereotypes. But the thing with this movie is, nobody is who you think they are at first, including Ben. Everyone has layers.
Vengeance is both hilariously funny, and extremely serious, not in turn, but kind of at the same time. What makes it so funny is how serious it is underneath. It’s not a light comedy, or even a dark comedy, it’s a deep comedy.
B.J. Novak hit it out of the park with this one, and has absolutely no ego in letting his character look foolish or wrong, and has such empathy for all of the characters. I look forward with great anticipation at what he is going to do next.
It’s summer, movies this small don’t stay in the theatres for long. Don’t dally.
Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog