If you’re at all predisposed to the choreographed karaoke of Glee, the underdog schematics of teen competitions à la Bring It On or the Step Up cycle, and the hero-misfits of a John Hughes comedy, then this slight but sunny entertainment is something of an idiot-grin-maker.
Anna Kendrick (age 27) and the reliably outré comic Rebel Wilson (age 26) stretch the limits of the imagination as members of an incoming college freshmen class. The perennially perky Kendrick plays Beca, a kohl-rimmed angerpuss who’d rather be mashing tracks than attending Intro to Psych. Still, she finds a community of sorts with Wilson’s Fat Amy – when asked by a lithe blond why she calls herself “Fat Amy,” she smirks, “So twig bitches like you don’t do it behind my back” – and a cookie-cutter dysfunctional, all-girls a cappella group. One soft-spoken singer, played by Hana Mae Lee, shares the same DNA as the Muppets’ Beaker, but underneath her “meep-meep” are snort-inducing confessions like “I set fires to feel joy.” One wishes the filmmakers had found room for more rough-edged oddities as this and spent less time borrowing goodwill from The Breakfast Club (and so soon after Easy A pulled the same act). All told, Pitch Perfect isn’t all that good – but it’s an awfully good sport.
This article appears in September 28 • 2012.
