Quiz Lady, a cast for a good laugh
This slapstick light entertainment works because of the zingers in the script and the fine performances of all of the well-cast actors.
Quiz Lady (M)
Disney+
★★★½
The madcap comedy Quiz Lady is a good example of why casting matters. Have you ever imagined Will Ferrell as a TV quiz show host who has been filling the same 7pm slot since the beginning of time? I had not until I saw this movie.
He’s Terry McTeer, host of Can’t Stop the Quiz. He wears a different bow tie each night and loves his job and almost all of the contestants, most of whom are with him for only one night. “That was thrilling,’’ he says at one point. “It’s almost like we were in a musical.”
That “almost” is because the reigning champion is Ron Heacock, a smug, tightly-wound, overly-smiley man who thinks he’s the real star.
Who to cast in this part? I think Steve Carrell, which is close. His lookalike Jason Schwartzman is perfect in the role.
The two main characters are sisters who are a decade apart. Rapper-actor Awkwafina is Anne Yum, a timid 33-year-old accountant who lives alone with her pet pug, Mr Linguini. She has been watching the Jeopardy!-like quiz show since she was four and has an encyclopaedic knowledge.
Sandra Oh from the TV series Killing Eve (2018-2022) is Jenny Yum, a take-no-prisoners failed actress who is down on her luck. Here it’s unexpected casting that works so well. Awkwafina as a beige-clad nerdy, single shut-in – “I’m not good at being looked at” – is a surprise and she is great.
“It’s like a robot lives here,’’ Jenny says after looking over her younger sister’s everything-in-its-place apartment, which includes a Terry McTeer doll. Jenny, though, is living in her car.
Their father is dead and their gambling addict mother has escaped from a nursing home and fled to Macau to spin the slot machines. She owes a local gangster, Ken (rapper Dumbfoundead), $US80,000.
Ken kidnaps Mr Linguini and Jenny tells Anne the only way they’ll get the money to pay off their mother’s debt and free the obese dog is if the brainiac goes on the quiz show.
There’s a too-true moment involving an online video of Anne watching the show and smashing the questions out of the park. Jenny records it without telling her and the clip goes viral. “How hating the quiz lady is racist,’’ someone posts, “but liking her is even more racist.”
This 99-minute movie is directed by Jessica Yu, who pokes gentle fun at her Chinese culture in Ping Pong Playa (2007), and is written by Jen D’Angelo.
With its two leads of Asian heritage, it continues the riff on being an Asian – in this case an Asian woman – in America.
The best jokes, though, have less to do with race. In a star cameo, Tony Hale is Ben Franklin, manager of the Ben Franklin Inn in Philadelphia. He dresses and speaks like the founding father, a masquerade that Jenny has a lot of fun with in her no-nonsense way.
There are two set-pieces that take the story to its conclusion: first, the audition, during which the anxious Anne takes various street drugs that Jenny carries around; second, the quiz show itself, where she meets her idol and goes head-to-head with Ron Heacock.
Each is wonderfully done. The cinematography (Adrian Peng Correia) on the first is a real trip. Awkwafina and Oh could well be the prickly, loathing and loving siblings they portray. We learn more about their childhood as the story moves on.
Quiz Lady is a slapstick light entertainment – you don’t need to know the square root of 5508 to understand what’s going on – that works because of the zingers in the script and the fine performances of all of the well-cast actors.
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