You Again

As a case study in bizarrely conflicted cinema, ‘You Again’ is fascinating. On one level, it’s a cosy, unashamedly bourgeois all-American wedding movie. On another it’s a fever-pitch psychodrama about guilt, self-loathing and ‘emotional terrorism’ crammed with loopy cameos and frenzied slapstick. This must be one of the weirdest films ever to bear the Disney brand.
Kristen Bell plays Marni, a geek-turned-goddess who is horrified to learn that her beloved big brother is about to marry the über-bitch, Joanna (Odette Yustman), who made her high-school life a living hell. So far, so ordinary – until the arrival of said psycho’s aunt Ramona (Sigourney Weaver), who happens to have a similar history with Marni’s seemingly ordinary suburban Mom, Gail (Jamie Lee Curtis).

The presence of these two acting powerhouses, plus the surely-not-coincidental similarity between our heroine’s name and that of Hitchcock’s most disturbed heroine, should give audiences a fair idea of what to expect. Yes, this is shrill, crass mainstream Hollywood product, but it has a tendency towards lurid kitsch freakout which makes it not just relentlessly entertaining, but borderline subversive.