Directed by: Todd Berger
Starring: David Cross, Julia Stiles, and America Ferrera
Plot: A couples brunch takes a turn for the worse when a nearby terrorist attack forces a lockdown.
Review:
It’s a Disaster is so far (which is still too early) one of the biggest surprises of the year. With the exception of 3 cast members, I didn’t recognize a single person. The poster and title make me think of a Disaster Movie spoof type comedy, and it was released on Video OnDemand in the first third of the yearly movie schedule (aka the dumping ground). All signs point to this being a disaster (ick! I regret writing that but I’m keeping it goddammit), but it was actually quite good.
Julia Stiles plays Tracy, a girl who just can’t seem to find the right guy, bringing her latest dating choice, Glen, an overall nice guy played by David Cross, to her friends’ weekly couples brunch. Relationship issues seems to run rampant in Tracy’s inner circle. Each couple has their own bullshit to work through. One couple is preparing to inform everyone of their upcoming divorce. Another couple has been engaged for almost a decade, and the last couple is a hippie-dippie pair of swingers. There is also another couple that is always late. I’m sure you can guess what happens to them. The polite conversations and cool heads don’t last long when their hazmat-clad neighbor comes by telling them about the dirty bombs that went off downtown. Now, they are all stuck in the house in fear of death.
Todd Berger definitely seems like he is a student of TV shows like Arrested Development or Louie or Veep. It’s a Disaster is practically devoid of any structured jokes and instead works as a series of conversational punchlines that work into a funny rhythm and stays consistent. At the head of everything is David Cross’s odd man out, a bumbling nice guy who finds himself the only voice of reason as the rest of the gang carry around their emotional baggage and beat each other with it. It takes a very short time for theses actors to start gelling together, but those beginning moments have an appropriate awkwardness a Sunday brunch would have for the new guy coming into a group with skeletons ready to burst out the closet.
I just wish it had a better ending. I let out a big belly laugh with the very last joke, but in terms of story, it was pretty unsatisfying and pretty anti-climatic.
Rating: 8/10
What to Watch: This is the first of 3 end-of-the-world comedies coming out this year. The Apatow crew’s This is the End and Edgar Wright’s The World’s End are both due out this summer. Keep an eye out for both of those!
