Film Review: Sausage Party Is A Twistedly Funny, Oddly Religious Film
To be fair, I knew I would love Sausage Party. What I did not know is that I would walk out of it feeling strangely introspective and powering my newfound insight on religion. Yes, beyond the comedic madness of food being alive, is a film that questions people’s relationship to suffering in terms of religion.
Going to see Sausage Party, I fully expected it to be a crass, crazy romp of sex jokes and F-bombs, which it totally was. After all, it is a Seth Rogen masterpiece…. it needs some dirty innuendos. What I did not expect was a purposeful, even heartfelt analysis of the toxic relationship people can build with their idea of Heaven and God. As a spiritual, Christian, I welcome any wisdom to expand my faith and heart, and did not expect it to come from a sexually frustrated hot dog named Frank (Seth Rogen) trying to defend and screw his girlfriend/ hotdog bun Brenda (Kristen Wiig). For these edibles, the humans are seen as gods that take them to the Great Beyond or Heaven. Yet, once they enter the Great Beyond, they realize it is a kitchen meant to cook them and prepare them for consumption.
I must warn that after you see this film you will probably walk into your pantry and ask your food if it is alive. It has that Toy Story effect where you secretly go to your attic and ask your old toys if they have feelings, particularly harsh ones towards you for growing up. What? No one did that? Okay, I’m alone. The humor of Sausage Party is sick, sad, and disgustingly hilarious. As you see finger foods yell for their life and perish, you will giggle and then emotionally beat yourself up for laughing, at least I did. It really is a preposterous film that completely revels in the idea that comedy is the choice to laugh at tragedy. You are literally watching a food tragedy, but again it is the film’s analysis of faith that will make you feel tragic.
I have always thought that condemnation, fear, and injustice were too often attributed and forwarded by religion. So often people take emotional bats to each other and themselves out of supposed “faith” in a God of Love. It is non-sensical, hypocritical, and detrimental, which Sausage Party beautifully shows. The film is not subtle in its message of the blindness and even danger people can put themselves out of a sub-conscious belief that religion is actually a spiritual prison rather than a spiritual liberator. The food items, being references for people, go through moments of self-deprecation and mental disappointments because they truly believed, if you were good enough, you would go to the Great Beyond and never suffer. Well, there was no Great Beyond, but there was a lot of suffering.
Listen, I believe in God and Heaven, but I fully welcome this film for showing you cannot praise God as terrific and terrifying. It does not match. He cannot be your kidnapper in inhibiting your joys in life, all while being your freer for happiness; the ideas clash. Some might say the film promotes atheism or dimities faith, but I feel it reveals that fear and faith are two separate things, and one (fear) can cause you more suffering if confused with the other (faith).
This absolutely deranged, fantastically humorous film comes out in cinemas on August 12.
