My Review of "Quiz Lady"

Quiz Lady is a very awkward comedy that recently came out. It normally would not be a movie that I'd like to explore but I do like the two leading ladies, Akwafina and Sandra Oh. I had to give this one a try at least, even though the whole idea didn't look that interesting to me.

The movie starts off with Anne and Jenny when they're very young. They're watching a popular quiz show. Anne in particular is quite enamored by the show. I guess it's a coping mechanism for all the horrible things that were happening to them while they were growing up.

Their parents had divorced and their mom was a gambling addict. With no money they had to survive off the kindness of family and friends. Jenny being the older of the two sisters eventually set off on her own life. Anne would always have the quiz show as a comfort blanket throughout her life. Over the years she's become somewhat of a quiz show savant.

Decades later, the catalyst of the real plot of the show starts up when their mother is missing from the nursing home she was housed in. Rather than just find their mother the nursing home tells the siblings that they are actually going to kick her out of the home. Little did everyone know, their mother had run up a gambling debt with a local loan shark.

Since their mother had skipped town the loan shark then kidnaps Anne's beloved dog for ransom money to pay back their mother's debt. The two sisters don't have enough money to pay off this large ransom. The only thing that could possibly get them out of this rut is for Anne to enter the quiz show she loves so much and win.

It's a very simple storyline but told in such a weird convoluted way. Though admittedly the circumstances are quite funny. The two sisters reuniting after such a long hiatus is a fun take as well. We immediately understand where Anne and Jenny's mindsets are at. The two are polar opposites and this kind of works very well as the wacky fun character along with the straight character.

Their dynamics work quite well and in a way quite relatable. I can see these two doing very sibling like things and their relationship feels quite authentic. They do a lot of things that siblings get angry with. I'm sure if you have a brother or sister you can probably see yourselves in some element of their dynamic. That's part of the fun with these two.

Antics are over the top but not in a totally absurd way. There are some grounded reasoning behind some of the things that happen. I like that they have a few characters added in there to add a little fun to the mix.

There are quite a lot of cameos in this movie as well. One of them is the late Paul Reubens which is quite sad because he passed away not too long before this movie had come out. It was a bit of a shocker when I saw him in the movie because I didn't think they'd do that for a guy that's passed away so recently.

Overall, this was a fun time for me. I thought it was a nice feel good sibling movie that can make people happy after seeing it. Sure a lot of the jokes didn't really work well for me but the family dynamics of this show really pushed me to enjoy the relationships contained in the movie. I will have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. It was a valiant effort and I don't regret watching it.