Cult Candy a Tasteless Confection

“Strangers with Candy” is a bona fide cult phenomenon that I’m pretty sure past me by. A critical hit during its 1999-2001 Comedy Central television run, it wasn’t until its DVD release that the show about an ex-junkie, ex-prostitute and ex-con returning to finish high school at the ripe old age of 47 became an out-and-out smash.

It was inevitable then that this passionate following would lead to a feature film. Unfortunately, no matter how silly the premise sounds or how hysterical the trailer for it is, sitting in a theater watching the film version of “Strangers with Candy” is akin to being invited to the world’s greatest cocktail party and only being served lukewarm grapefruit juice. Sitting in the theater, it was like everyone was in on the joke but me, and while moments of hilarity managed to hit me over the head a time or two I still couldn’t help but wonder what all the fuss was about.

A prequel to the television show, the movie follows Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris) as she gets out of prison and returns home only to find her father Guy (Dan Hedaya) in a coma and married to a woman (Deborah Rush) she’s never met. Partly out of guilt, and partly under the impression doing so could wake her beloved daddy out of his Coma, Jerri returns to Flatpoint High School at the exact point she left off over three decades before, convinced doing so will change both her life and Guy’s for the better.

Once there she discovers a school in crisis, not that the self serving narcissistic 47-year-old freshman notices. But behind the scenes chaos does indeed rumble, Principal Blackman (Gregory Hollimon) forced to prove to the school board that his students can produce scholastically or face extreme budget cuts. He brings in flamboyant teacher Dr. Roger Beekman (Matthew Broderick) to lead his kids to victory in the local science fair, the educator’s perfect record at these events sure to impress the school board.

This does not sit will with regular science teacher Chuck Noblet (Stephen Colbert). Things become particular bitter between the twosome when Beekman takes all the good (i.e. attractive and popular) students for his team leaving him with all the bad (i.e. unattractive and unpopular) students, including Jerri, for his. But Jeri could care less about any of this; she just wants to do something smart and prove she can be an outstanding student. Well, an outstanding student just as long as proving it doesn’t require studying or interrupt her plans to become popular, that is.

First things first, Amy Sedaris is a comedic fireball and no wonder David Letterman lover her so much. This woman is absolutely fearless when it comes to trying to get a laugh out of an audience. I got the feeling there was absolutely nothing she would not do, no depth she would not go to, and this hurricane-like fortitude in search of comedy was downright breathtaking.

The problem is I didn’t find the majority of the movie all that funny. While I admired how writers Paul Dinello (who also directs), Colbert and Sedaris say and do things most of us only ponder but never really do (at least out loud), the whole thing felt too much like a series of disconnected skits than a film coalescing into a whole. Worse, the star cameos (save for Broderick and wife Sarah Jessica Parke, popping up as a wiseass guidance counselor, who are hysterical) peppered throughout amount to virtually nothing. And while Allison Janney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ian Holm et al seem to be enjoying themselves, for the rest of us it’s impossible not to wonder what the heck they’re doing wasting their time here.

I couldn’t help but think this was one cult phenom I needed to see from the beginning to really appreciate and understand. Well, not so much understand, there’s nothing so complicated here that a four-year-old wouldn’t have trouble understanding it, as relate to. As it was I could respect some of the vibrant over-the-top politically incorrect theatrics and appreciate how great Sedaris was in the lead role even as the rest of it left me cold. If anything, “Strangers with Candy” was nothing more than a tasteless confection which left me annoyed and hungry for something, anything, other than more of the banality it was already offering.