Spin Me Round

After watching, I have little idea of what the movie was trying to do. About the only takeaway I had was the feeling that I had just wasted my time. The plot was not particularly interesting and for the most part didn't make a lot of sense. I guess the film was attempting to be a comedy, but it just wasn't funny enough to justify that classification. Alison Brie's presence raised my rating by 2-3 stars, but other than her there wasn't much about the movie I can recommend.

In the lightest and sometimes strangest comedy of the year, Spin Me Round, a manager of Italian Grille (think Olive Garden), Amber (Alison Brie), wins a trip to a corporate immersion program in Italy, enthusiastic about vacating her humdrum life in Bakersfield, Ca. Other winner managers of varying eccentricities are played by top-drawer comic actors Tim Heidecker, Debby Ryan, Zach Woods, Ayden Mayeri, and Molly Shannon. Her fantasies are of adventure and maybe hookup, maybe love. She gets all three but not as innocent as she thought they might be. Although this is a whimsical comedy, underneath lies writer/director Jeff Baena and writer Alison Brie's satire of middle-class naivete, ambitions, and the plague of sexual harassment. We can best understand the depression of a pandemic that seemed to deflate our most wishful sailing to a place of dreams. Given that the exciting adventure of her life may be applying a commercial Alfredo sauce at work to pasta and seeing it "spin around" the microwave, it's easy to see her being a victim of the rich, handsome chain owner, Nick (Alessandro Nivola). That she doesn't see lust in the eyes of American expats at a party, who view her as easy pickings, is about the best indicator of her vulnerability. That she doesn't pick up on the cheesy way the party host (Fred Amisen) lip-synchs to "The Lady in Red" as she enters the party in her crimson gown is a further hint that Spin Me Around is light fare, and she is not prepared for the absurdity. With the equally stereotypical Euro-thriller music from composer Pino Donagio, the audience is prepared for the satire of post-Fellini decadence with a dash of humor. The Agatha Christie-like murder speculations lend a further light tone to a story that could have gone into The Twilight Zone. Spin Me Around is a beautifully photographed bit of fluff, just right for the end of the summer, a pause to reflect on our dreams as they invariably disappoint. Reality bites.

Near to the end, the Alison Brie character says "WTF is going on?" and most viewers will have asked the same thing about an hour earlier. The film starts off fairly predictably but once the action moves to Tuscany, no-one, except the above mentioned character, behaves like normal people behave. And not in a funny, zany-comedy way, they simply become progressively more weird. OK, you think, at any moment now, the hidden under-story will reveal itself and things will start to make sense. But it doesn't, the plot just becomes increasingly illogical, as if the writers (Brie included) concocted it one Saturday evening after several bottles of wine, with no idea how the story would end. Having said all that, it's not so frustrating that you don't see it through to the finale, it is set in Italy in the sunshine after all. But you will probably stare at the closing credits, as I did, thinking so what was that all about?

There's got to be another reason why this movie got made. Aubrey plaza and molly shannon have both been talking, bragging almost, about how they filmed in italy and took their families with them and whatnot. 70% is filmed inside a bleak poorly lit office space. This isn't a movie - it's a tax cut. Also wtf is pino donaggio doing here?

What a bore! I assumed this was supposed to be a comedy or something, but there was no jokes!?!! Characters are flat and lifeless. Seemed like no one wanted to be in this movie. This looked liked one of those forgettable films that pop up on one of those no name streaming services that nobody has. How does this director keep getting funding for his terrible dumb boring movies???

... an absolute waste of resources ... utter garbage ... with no plot ... no message ... nothing to redeem itself in any way whatsoever. The only thing that "Spin Me Round" can say for itself is that it finally answers the question of whether or not Fred Armisen and Molly Shannon have any relevance left at all. That answer is "no".