By Mr. Will Wong
Borrowing some ideas from the likes of Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion and Bridesmaids, Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl, Beatriz at Dinner) returns with Like a Boss. The Comedy like those Films explores the idea of female friendships tested through the rigours of life and growth. While the Comedy doesn’t offer anything particularly new to the genre, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a fun girl’s night out.
Two childhood best friends Mel (Rose Byrne) and Mia (Tiffany Haddish) are doing their best to keep their cosmetics and makeover shop afloat. Mel is the business woman of the two, while Mia is the creative half. Their world is about to change in a big way one day when successful Entrepreneur Claire Luna (Salma Hayek) taps-in on their potential, offering to clear their debt, while garnering an interest in their company. The join venture tests Mel and Mia‘s friendship, as they are forced to examine the issues they’ve kept refusing to face in one another. Meanwhile, Claire‘s outlandish vision for their company threatens to tear them apart and ruin everything they’ve worked to build all these years.
Arteta isn’t quite working with the caliber of material he is used to here with Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly‘s Script, but both Haddish‘s bravado paired with Byrne‘s restraint strike a balance which draws some decent laughs. Hayek reunites with Arteta after some great results in Beatriz at Dinner, dialing it up a few notches here and while she is an entertaining villain, we don’t get enough her own backstory and what has led to her destructive ways. A welcome surprise at the end of the Film is kept well, but this comes at the cost of noticable gaps in much-needed backstory between Claire and her own nemesis. The Film doesn’t quite reach some of the emotional depths that greats in the genre like Girls Trip and Bridesmaids (which coincidentally or not both Haddish and Byrne starred in) have and we wish it went there with these BFFs.
We cannot deny Like a Boss delivers some fun, giving the girls a reason to congregate for a deserved night out.
Paramount Pictures Canada release LIKE A BOSS Friday, January 10, 2020.
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