'Support The Girls' Is The Best Dark Comedy You Probably Haven't Seen

I've seen critic friends and other tastemakers on the Twittermachine talking about catching up with Support the Girls during awards season, and I am here to tell you they are right. Set in a Houston-area Hooters knockoff — it's called "Double Whammies," if you please — Andrew Bujalski's assured, low-key dark comedy opened back in August but never reached most multiplexes. Now that it's available for streaming (for free if you've already got Hulu, and for $3.99 on various other services), it's bound to find an appreciative audience among hard-pressed working women and pretty much anyone who's ever known one.

Bujalski's script follows the Double Whammies manager (an utterly winning Regina Hall) through a day that starts with a would-be burglar and ends with the boss lady and two ex-employees primal-screaming their frustrations over the edge of a rooftop. As Manohla Dargis wrote in her (paywalled) NYT review, Bujalski "likes to foreground people and places that other moviemakers ignore or use as atmosphere. He sees these women, and invites you to see them, too."

I'm here to echo Dargis, and encourage you to give 'em a good look.

Originally published elsewhere on Jan. 15 2019.