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Last week, I had another very occasional lunch with a friend who was a power in indie film when that meant something. We worked through the usual stuff—aches and pains, dead colleagues, favorite restaurants closed. Then came that increasingly difficult movie question: “Seen anything you liked?”
The friend went with Wonka. It was a surprise, beguiling, and worth seeing on the big screen. The music was a bonus, completely unexpected, said my companion.
I landed on Drugstore June. The film isn’t out yet, but I happened to get a peek. It’s small, funny, and lands smack in the middle of a favorite genre: Off-center charmer turns world upside down. You know, Bringing Up Baby, What’s Up Doc?, Clueless, that sort of thing. Esther Povitsky is the charmer, Nick Goossen the director, and both of them wrote it.
Anyway, the conversation led a day or two later to a realization so obvious that I’d missed it. The two biggest movies of 2023—Barbie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, with combined domestic ticket sales of some $1.2 billion—were, of all things, comedies.
By my count, that hasn’t happened since 1988, when Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Coming to America topped the box-office, with combined sales of about $384 million. (And they were followed closely by four comedies, Good Morning, Vietnam, Big, Crocodile Dundee II and Three Men and a Baby.)
So my friend and I clearly are not alone. When we watch a movie just now, we aren’t out to rebuild society or right the wrongs of history on-screen. What we want, desperately, is some fun. Laughs. Song. A respite from the grinding pressures of a society that has become weirdly uncomfortable with itself.
Wonka. Drugstore June. Barbie. Mario. Anything, large or small, that makes life lighter for a few hours.
Which, come to think of it, brings a wish for this evening’s Golden Globes ceremony (in which Penske Media, owner of Deadline, has a stake). Let it be fun. Laugh it up. Party like it’s 1988.
We can deal with our troubles in the morning.
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