Tag Archives: Jillian Bell

Godmothered

Eleanor (Jillian Bell) is the youngest trainee and the only person who’s bothered to apply in decades; fairy godmothering just isn’t what it used to be. But head mistress Moira (Jane Curtin) keeps on teaching the same tried and true formula: 1. glittery gown 2. true love 3. happily ever after. Except humans stopped believing in ‘happily ever after’ a long time ago. No fairy godmother has been on assignment in years – the school’s about to close, the godmothers to be retrained as tooth fairies. Eleanor is devastated. Godmothering is all she’s ever wanted to do and now she’ll never even get the chance to start, so she takes matters into her own hands and finds a neglected assignment, a request for a fairy godmother that was never granted. She heads down to earth to fulfill the godmothering duties, and hopefully prove that godmothers are still in demand.

Of course, when she eventually finds herself in Boston, she finds not a 10 year old girl, but a full grown woman named Mackenzie (Isla Fisher) (apparently the letter was a little dated). What a disaster: in what way could a single mother in a dead end job possibly need godmothering? Well, both Mackenzie and Eleanor are about to find out because Eleanor refuses to go back to the motherland a failure.

Godmothered doesn’t exactly skewer the popular Disney fairy godmother formula, but it expands on what was traditionally a pretty narrow definition of happily ever after. Welcome to the modernization of Disney. They’ve been rehabbing their image and redefining the princess genre in movies like Frozen and even Ralph Breaks The Internet. Godmothered asks whether magic, wishes, and belief still have a place in modern society, and if not, what should take their place. It doesn’t quite go all the way as a ‘message’ movie but it does get some pretty great mileage out of good old-fashioned kindness and cooperation, which never go out of style.

Eleanor is charming as a fish out of water, a magical being in the land of humans for the first time, not unlike Enchanted Giselle or even Elf’s Buddy the Elf. Jillian Bell is simply enchanting, more grounded than flighty, but with enough fairy dust on her performance to give her wings. Director Sharon Maguire delivers a warm and feel-good story that is perfect for cozy family viewing.

Sword of Trust

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Cynthia’s a little disappointed to learn that she won’t inherit her dead grandfather’s house. In fact, the only inheritance Cynthia (Jillian Bell) and her wife Mary (Michaela Watkins) will receive is an old civil war-era sword that they can’t wait to dump at a pawn shop.

Mel (Marc Maron) owns just such a pawn shop. He isn’t overly impressed with the sword, or with Cynthia’s story about her GrandPappy, but when he learns that this sword may be of value to a certain kind of collector, his assistant Nathaniel (Jon Bass) puts him in touch with a man crazy enough to shell out big bucks. So now these four people are going to partner up and travel down to the deep south where a “proofer item,” ie, a sword that purports to prove that the south won the civil war, is high in demand.

You can imagine what kind of idiocy you invite into your life when you start hanging out with someone who vehemently believes in a southern victory. What other conspiracy theories are you likely to wind up in?

Sword of Trust is slow in the good way – it takes its time getting to know folks, and really probing the dirty corners of people’s wildest speculations. This is the kind of movie where the players just get in a room and hang out. Even when they’re locked in the back of a U-Haul they’re pithy and quippy and full of spunk.

We got to see Marc Maron at Just For Laughs this summer, and while I expected to be entertained, I wasn’t prepared to see a truly energizing and exciting set. This film gives him the space to act and react. Writer-director Lynn Shelton crafts the perfect opportunity for him, and then casts people around him with similar improvisational aplomb, especially Jillian Bell who has really blossomed in her last few roles. By the time Dan Bakkedahl makes his appearance, we’re already sold, and the rest is just icing on a confederate cake.

Brittany Runs A Marathon

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This year I discovered that I really like listening to podcasts on long drives, and we drive a lot. One that I’ve particularly enjoyed is Fortune Feimster’s Sincerely Fortune, which she does with her fiancee Jax, and sometimes her mother, Ginger. Although I love Fortune’s standup, the podcast is consciously a more sincere and authentic discussion. Occasionally she has friends on, and one day, she had her good friend and former improv classmate Jillian Bell on the show. You may not know her name, but you would almost certainly recognize her. I had a heck of a time proving to Sean that he knew her, what with roles like “clingy friend” in Rough Night and “pregnant wife” in The Night Before being not super memorable or easy to point to. But this film is Bell’s first chance at a starring role and boy did she ride it for all it’s worth. Fortune was expansive with praise, clearly proud of her friend, and not only did I find it a moving testament to female friendship, it made me incredibly interested in the movie.

I’m happy to say I was not disappointed.

Ostensibly, Brittany Runs A Marathon is about a woman, perhaps an unlikely runner, who trains for the NYC Marathon. Her life is kind of a mess and her health could use improvement, so she takes up training as a means to exert a little more control on a life she sees as perhaps moving on without her, perhaps unsalvageable.

While we are experiencing Brittany’s transformation in miles traversed and pounds lost, this movie isn’t really about the running, and certainly not about the weight loss. It’s really about learning to grow, to being open to it. It’s about reawakening old dreams and letting go of old, toxic relationships. Brittany doesn’t become a better person when she becomes a thinner person. In fact, she might be at her most nasty. What saves her is showing herself what she can do – that her stagnant life can be nourished, that the dead ends are in fact just cul-de-sacs.

Jillian Bell in the lead role lives up to every aspect of her character. She undertook the same transformation as her character, Brittany, and you can tell how closely she relates to the material in the film. The supporting cast, including Micah Stock, Lil Rel Howery, Michaela Watkins, and Utkarsh Ambudkar, is extremely strong. There’s a lot of great chemistry and everyone has the benefit of a good, solid script from writer-director Paul Downs Colaizzo.

Because Jillian Bell is slightly wider than a No. 2 pencil, she’s often relegated to playing the out-of-control pal who’s very physical and quite obnoxious. In Brittany Runs A Marathon, she gets to go beyond just her fearless talent for physical comedy and flex the rest of her acting muscles as well. It’s terrific to see her in a role that’s worthy of her and I hope this means there are many more to come. It turns out that Brittany really didn’t need to transform her body. It was her head that needed the makeover – new confidence, more agency, bigger ambitions. Her salvation wasn’t found on a bathroom scale, it was in accomplishing her goals and widening her circle of support. Her trajectory isn’t straight. Her ups and downs sometimes push us away, make her hard to root for. But she’s an exceptionally real character who feels authentic and relatable and she’s exactly the kind of woman we need to celebrate.