Quiz Lady had a premiere at the El Capitan during AFI ahead of its release on Hulu (and Star on Disney+) on November 8th. Director Jessica Yu and writer Jen D’Angelo were in attendance for what was clearly planned to be a much bigger event at the historic Los Angeles theatre, but unfortunately, the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike for a fair contract (now over 100 days) prevented the talented cast from attending.
Quiz Lady is a comedy starring Awkwafina as Anne, and Sandra Oh as Jenny playing two very different but stunted adults. The inciting incident is when the siblings are brought back together because their mother not only snuck out of their retirement home for Macau. Flipping the typical trope of the responsible older sister mostly on its head, Oh’s Jenny comes in as an agent of chaos, clinging to her youth, and waiting for a payout from a lawsuit from a restraint. Awkwafina’s Anne likes routine, and that includes watching her favorite game show every day. Never misses an episode. And she never misses a question with her faithful dog Linguine by her side (though Jenny will claim Linguine is hers even though she abandoned him 20 years ago). But when Jenny captures a video of Anne answering all the questions and she goes viral, it has the unintended consequence of getting Linguine kidnapped for their mother’s debts she bailed on when she went to Macau. Leaving the pair with the task of getting $80,000 if they want Linguine back (they do).
It’s a silly comedy, with a lot of heart. I smiled a lot watching it, and not just because I have a sister of my own. I felt it did a good job of capturing the stupid lengths we go to for those we love, even if we tell ourselves we don’t care anymore.
Just because it’s a silly comedy, that doesn’t mean it’s not dealing with some grounded emotional issues. The film doesn’t shy away from the trauma of Anne or Jenny’s childhoods, the emotions they felt as being othered by their family members (the cool cousins in Burbank), and how those experiences affected them as children and the adults they became. The film is a comedy, but the characters’ backgrounds are full of a lot of pain to make them the adults they are. But (SPOILER), because it is a comedy, they do get to work through that pain as they work to get Linguine back and get closer together as sisters after years of estrangement.
Linguine is a whole mood, and anyone who has ever worked in film and television knows working with animals is often considered one of the harder things, because they can be a little unpredictable. So I was super impressed with a scene with Sandra Oh, Jon Park, and the guys playing his crew because there were a lot of dogs in that scene, and they were either the best-behaved dogs ever or they were really good at maintaining control during that scene.
The game show itself is like a combination of Jeopardy meets $10,000 Pyramid, with Will Ferrell as the Alek Trebek-like host Terry McTeer. Having loved the SNL Celebrity Jeopardy bits, it was nice to see him do a soft version of a game host who had a wonderful scene where he spoke of the memories he keeps of each show, memorialized by his bow ties on the wall, and how he remembers not the winners, but the contestants who got to play the game they loved. And as someone who has many fond memories of watching Jeopardy with my family, that scene resonated. A reminder to stop worrying about the outcome and enjoy the experience. And that’s what I did with Quiz Lady, I enjoyed the experience.
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