Movie Review: Rhea Perlman is Outstanding in 'Marvelous and the Black Hole'

Marvelous and the Black Hole is a delightful comedy about a depressed teenager and the magician who helps turn her life around. If that premise doesn’t perk you up a little, the movie isn’t for you but if you’re like me, and that description made you smile, you must see this movie. Rhea Perlman, famed star of Cheers, gets a rare leading role as the magician in this story and she has lost none of her light comic touch from when she was a television star. In fact, based on the evidence of this movie, experience has only made Perlman even more lovable.

The true star of Marvelous and the Black Hole is Miya Cech as Sammy. Sammy is struggling following the death of her mother. When we meet Sammy she’s committed some serious damage to her High School and is facing some serious potential consequences. Summer is starting and in order to keep Sammy out of trouble, her father has enrolled her in a College Business course. Sammy is required to show up every day, get a good grade, and stay out of trouble or face the horror of going to a summer work camp for wayward teens that looks like a military boot camp crossed with a prison.

Sammy goes along to get along but she’s not happy about it. On her first day Sammy is already fully checked out. After requesting to use the restroom, Sammy skips the entire class after she’s tricked into helping a magician entertain a nearby daycare full of small children. The magician is Margot (Perlman) and she can sense that Sammy is deeply depressed and it makes her want to help Sammy. Of course, Sammy doesn’t want to be helped, especially by some strange magician person. Things change, and the plot truly kicks in, when, in a moment of panic, Sammy tells her business teacher that Margot’s business is going to be her model for class.

Though she is loath to admit it, Sammy is impressed with Margot’s magic. She can’t figure out how she does it and Margot’s infectious joy in performing slowly begins to inspire Sammy. That inspiration doesn’t take hold right away however and at home, Sammy is still in a deeply strained relationship with her father. Dad, Angus (Leonardo Nam), has begun a new romantic relationship with a lovely woman named Marianne (Paulina Lule) and, though Dad doesn't realize it right away, it has re-opened the old wounds from the death of Sammy’s mother.

Marvelous and the Black Hole was written and directed by Kate Tsang with a strong sense of understanding, compassion, warmth and humor. Sammy is not an easy character to like but it is that very prickly quality that Tsang hones in on and employs to make Sammy feel authentic and eventually sympathetic. She’s struggling with a deep sadness that isn’t going to be easily lifted by the intervention of a spritely stranger. Tsang understands this character and how best to bring her to a place of healing by surrounding her with characters who are equally flawed but deeply caring and empathetic.

Rhea Perlman is outstanding in Marvelous and the Black Hole. I have seen a lot of movies recently with young or amateur actors trying to give life to characters and it was so refreshing to watch a pro like Perlman show how easy it can be to invest a character with life, humor and vitality. Perlman is charm personified and her easy charisma creates a wondrous chemistry between herself and Miya Cech. Not to take anything away from Cech, who is also very good in this movie, but it is not hard to see how playing against Perlman elevated her performance, the two are a marvelous duo on screen.

Marvelous and the Black Hole is a terrific movie, a lovely comic drama, a thoughtful examination of grief, and a humble comedy with delightful characters, smart choices of incident, and a near perfect pace. It’s a joy to watch such a simple, well executed comedy, one well polished but with a shaggy dog charm. Kate Tsang directs Marvelous and the Black Hole with supreme confidence, an assured quality that you can sense from the lovely and inviting set design, the moments of whimsy, and the heartfelt and affecting emotional beats.

Marvelous and the Black Hole arrives in limited theatrical release on Friday, April 22nd and I urge you to seek it out.