Jason Bateman is such a likeable actor and presence on screen that he manages to generate sympathy for his mostly unlikeable character he portrays in Bad Words. The picture marks his directorial debut and Bateman shows ability behind the camera. Unfortunately Bad Words is hampered by a mixed bag of a script by Andrew Dodge that is often tonally challenged.
Guy Trilby (Bateman) is a 40 year old man whose maturity is so stunted that he’s taken it upon himself to enter spelling bees for children. He’s found a loophole in the tournament guidelines stating that no participant can have graduated 8th grade by a certain date. Trilby is a dropout. And, yes, he’s one hell of a speller. He’s also a profane and self-serving jerk who goes to great measures to torment his prepubescent competitors and psych them out. Trilby is being trailed on his mission to win The Golden Quill national spelling bee by an online reporter (Kathryn Hahn) telling his unique and unconventional story. Her mission, like the audience’s, is to discover just why Trilby is doing what he’s doing. The two also have a romantic relationship, though that might be straining the definition of the word romantic. It’s more of a sexual relationship out of convenience and boredom.
Along the way, Trilby strikes up a friendship with Chaitanya (Rohan Chand), a young boy who will be his main competition. In rather obvious fashion, Trilby shows Chaitanya an inappropriate good time and shows him a different side of life than his strict upbringing which involves studying words constantly. Their friendship does provide some raunchy moments that are good for some decent, if familiar, laughs.
Bad Words shows us the understandable bewilderment of the children’s parents whose kids are being systematically taken out by Trilby and Rachael Harris (of “The Daily Show”) has some funny moments as one of the parents. There’s also the characters of the bee’s Chairman (Philip Baker Hall) and director (Allison Janney). Their two characters shine a light on some of the script problems. Both are one-dimensional and poorly written and they serve only as “villains” getting in Trilby’s way. A better screenplay might have attempted to flesh out their roles.
It’s an accomplishment of Bateman’s acting abilities that we manage to not completely hate his character. When we do finally find out just why he’s participating in the bee, it’s not much of a surprise and it doesn’t exactly ring the emotional bell that it’s meant to. What we’re left with is a very solid performance from Bateman and occasional laugh out loud moments that come mostly from conventional R rated comedy clichés. So to define in a sentence whether you should see Bad Words – You’re not missing out on much if you don’t.
**1/2 (out of four)
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For me, Bad Words is the funniest movie I’ve seen in 2014 so far. I love Jason Bateman and he really turned this potential horrible movie into a something so much more. Good review!
rgagne – appreciate your readership and hearing your thoughts. It didn’t quite get there for me, but it certainly had some solid laugh out loud moments. Thanks again!