Movie Review Eat Wheaties! Chews On Awkward Humor
Tony Hale is one of the most unique actors because has some transformed the “patheticness” of being human into charm. He takes our overeagerness to be connected, appreciated, and loved, and turns it onto an onscreen presence when we know, in real life, it would be ignored and even bullied. In EAT WHEATIES!, you laugh, pity, and self-analyze at your own desperation to be seen in a world that has always filtered people out by their “looks.”
The film begins with Tony Hale’s Sid trying to take a bunch of profile pics that do not make him look like a total Facebook creeper. (Note: the bigger and wider the smile, the more we think you have murdered someone). He tells a co-worker how he used to be friends with Elizabeth Banks in college, to which the co-worker scoffs. Immediately, the film sets up that Sid invests WAY MORE in relationships than people do with him, including “Just A Friend” Kate and coworkers like Zoey . Although he is sweet and generous, he oozes “PLEASE LIKE ME!” at every instance, which, of course, people don’t. Thus, begins posting on, old classmate, Elizabeth Banks FB page with supposed inner jokes they at UPENN, and, as an audience, we see how banally and obliviously someone can become off-putting.
They say comedy is the choice to laugh at tragedy rather than cry, but that doesn’t mean you don’t feel the undercurrents of sadness rolling through every joke, especially in scenes when he is at a friend’s house longingly watching them build a marriage and kids. Yet, his creepy FB comments on EB’s page get him fired with a restraining and a bunch of people virally questioning if he is absolutely insane because loneliness never transfers well on posts. Thus, as he is forced to move back home and lawyer up to attend his class reunion, writer/ director Scott Abramovitch creates a film that is casually funny and low-key empowering.
Make no mistake! The world may see Sid as pathetic, but he is not someone to be steam-rolled or happily denied his due. Thus, when he turns the tables on those who defamed him and begins opening up to love and friendships from a waitress and a haphazard lawyer, Paul Walter Hauser’s Fisk, the film summarizes an important message: never give up on yourself even if the world does not feel you are someone to give to. Many thought Sid was someone to put down, but how he lifts himself up with not over or after-thought is both hilarious and motivational. Check Out Eat Wheaties On VOD April 30.
