[usr 2.5]
Nina is a provocative stand-up comedian whose career is taking off, but whose personal life is a near-complete disaster. To escape a difficult ex and to prepare for a life-changing audition, Nina flees to Los Angeles where she meets Rafe, who challenges almost every preconception she has – including those around her own deeply troubled past.
Writer/director Eva Vives’ feature-length debut, “All About Nina,” is commendable for two things. The first is Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s riveting central performance as Nina, a self-destructive, bitter but soulful comedian struggling to make it in the sexist, male-driven world of stand-up performers. The second is Vives’ unremarkable-but-assured sense of mood and setting – for a first-timer, she tells her melancholic story elegantly, her lack of experience never palpable.
Too bad the story she tells and the themes that blare themselves throughout the narrative are so cliché-ridden and predictable. The #MeToo themes of female injustice/strive for empowerment are surely commendable, but when displayed so perfunctorily and clumsily, without so much as a hint of subtlety, they begin to seem manipulative. Everything is triple-spelled-out in big bold letters, mostly through Nina’s misandrous monologues on stage, wherein she divulges how she chooses to simply “fuck men” instead of ever engaging in a meaningful relationship with them.
This, of course, leads to her “meet cute” with Rafe, a man who will change it all for her, played with wide-eyed sincerity by Common – and there’s a LOT of Common, much more than I expected. Common is arguably one of the greatest rappers of all time, and he’s got charm to spare – but in small doses. I doubt he is a professionally trained actor, or at least one ready to share so much screen time with a kick-ass female performer (just as Winstead could not compete with Common in a rap battle – although after her convincing turns as an alcoholic in “Smashed,” and now a comedian, I’m not so sure that statement’s valid). When “All About Nina” becomes all about rom-com clichés – which is most of the time – it flounders badly, mostly due to a crucial lack of chemistry between the leads, as hard as both actors try to ignite that spark.
“All About Nina” sort of comes alive when it deals with Nina’s struggle to make it – but even then, the film is just too on-the-nose, too simplistic in its structure and overall thematic approach, to truly resonate. It becomes especially evident in its final act, a “shocking twist” of sorts that puts Nina’s acerbic behavior in perspective but also shames us for condemning her earlier. The film has its moments, most of them involving Winstead; that said it’s also a waste of an excellent performance, which deserved a much more insightful, artful and meaningful dissection of comedy, of exorcizing your demons on stage, of what it’s like to be a female comedian in such a misogynist landscape. Vives’ got the technical chops – now she needs to hone her artistic vision.
Now playing in select theaters
