Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar review – baffling and delightful in equal measure

Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo are best known as a duo for 2011’s wildly successful, game-changing comedy, Bridesmaids, but anyone expecting a similar balance of laughs, pathos, and harsh reality in their latest effort, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, will be in for a shock. Here is the least grounded and downright silliest comedy we’re likely to see in 2021, a brightly coloured explosion of jokes and ridiculous plotting that’s baffling and delightful in equal measure.

Mumolo and Wiig play the titular duo, forty-something best friends who live together in a quiet Nebraska town. After losing their jobs at the local mall, Barb and Star decide to take a spontaneous vacation to the Florida resort of Vista Del Mar and cut loose after years of overly cautious living. It’s a premise that may feel a little familiar and staid, but it’s not long before Barb and Star reveals its real – and far stranger – plot. A mad scientist (also played by Wiig, doing her best Cate Blanchett impression) is planning to release a horde of killer mosquitoes on the resort, a conspiracy that eventually falls to Barb and Star to stop.

Even that summary doesn’t quite capture how chaotic and nonsensical Barb and Star ends up being, and its wilful oddness will undoubtedly prove off-putting to some. Yet, it throws so much at the wall that something is bound to stick and there are plenty of great jokes hidden in amongst the general mania. Wiig and Mumolo were clearly having a great time both in the writing and acting and everything here is enjoyably broad and daft, from the performances to the set design, which packs in as many sight gags as possible.

Almost stealing the film from the lead duo is Jamie Dornan, who is remarkably game as the mad scientist’s conflicted assistant Edgar. Whether he’s having a drunken threesome with Wiig and Mumolo or singing to seagulls in an out-of-the-blue musical number, Dornan gives even the most absurd scenes his all, and earns a lot of the film’s biggest laughs with his neediness and flouncy dancing.

At a lot of points, Barb and Star is simply too busy, scenes flying past in a high-pitched, sometimes irritatingly self-indulgent, blur, but Wiig and Mumolo always manage to steady the ship with a sharp joke, a funny montage, or a cutaway to the hilariously bleak “Talking Club” that Barb and Star left behind in Nebraska. There are also a lot of fun little roles staffed by some of American comedy’s best “That Guy” actors, who bring a smile to a scene simply by appearing in it.

Surreal and deliberately plasticky in its visuals and design, Barb and Star feels closer in spirit to Wiig’s more offbeat TV work like Wet Hot American Summer and divisive spoofs like The Spoils of Babylon than her more accessible films. It’s certainly not for everyone, and there are a few scenes you have to grit your teeth through, though at its best the bizarre plotting and rapid-fire jokes make for a hugely entertaining and original comedy that has the added benefit of transporting you to an enviably luxurious holiday destination.

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is now streaming on Curzon Home Cinema.