This week in the Deep Hurting Project: Jack and Jill. Adam Sandler is a very talented actor, comedian, and even singer/songwriter, to an extent. Unfortunately, he has a very frustrating habit of making movies where he can just phone everything in. He still makes good films, and one's even in the Criterion Collection. That said, for the longest time (post-Wedding Singer), if he made a film that a majority of the critics liked (say, Punch Drunk Love, Funny People, Reign Over Me, or Spanglish), it would lose money. If it went below 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, it was all but guaranteed to make its money back as long as it wasn't Little Nicky or 8 Crazy Nights. And just as people were starting to wonder how to counteract this tide of mediocrity, something incredible happened: Jack and Jill came out and EVERYONE hated it. And Grown-Ups 2 and Hotel Transylvania aside, his career started to go into a legit decline. Now he's been reduced to starring in Netflix original movies, Hotel Transylvania sequels, and also Uncut Gems. So what made this so bad it's the only Sandler-starring film in the Deep Hurting Project (since Going Overboard isn't readily available for me, anyway?):
- And we start with When Harry Met Sally-style interviews with identical twins. And one thing that becomes clear: there's no mixed gender sets of identical twins. This is because, as it turns out, the central conceit that this hinges on, Adam Sandler playing his own identical twin sister, is extremely rare. And even in those cases, the female half is developmentally disabled. Not just mentally, but physically. And spoiler alert, Jill may be an idiot, but she's not developmentally disabled. (Note: there are male-female twins, but they're fraternal, not identical.) Yes, they put a big clue about why this movie is utterly unrealistic before the title sequence:
- Okay, full disclosure, the Blu-Ray copy I used is defective and skipped from a bit less than 4 minutes in to just after 8 minutes in. I was forced to reconstruct that from a YouTube video that's really diced up.
- Al Pacino's too big to do commercials?
- So, Jill is basically Adam Sandler in a wig and the simpleton voice he used to do regularly. Fucking Hell.
- Did I miss something from that chopped-up Youtube upload, who are all these people? Who's the homeless guy and why does he live with Adam Sandler? Are the other adults Sandler's parents or his in-laws? And why is the kid there?
- And so, apparently, the kid who tapes things to his body or shirt does so because he's alienated from his Indian heritage. How the fuck did Jill even come to that conclusion? Did she have it explained to her by the screenwriters?
- Does Jill not know what a salt shaker looks like so she mistakes a pepper grinder for one?
- So, does she go to his place every year or not? She claims she does, but everyone else acts like she doesn't.
- Why is anti-semitism a running theme in this movie?
- And is Jill wearing a fucking grill? Because it looks like she's wearing a grill.
- Of course they're so alike: it's just Adam Sandler in a wig and fake teeth.
- Being called a psycho is a good excuse for her to stay at the home of the man who insulted her indefinitely? And why doesn't he just offer to pay for a room at a Motel 6 or summat?
- Shaq is wearing a wig and licking what I can only assume to be a frozen ham. Dafuq?
- Finally some twin time. Even though she's been living with him for months, and even inserts himself in oddly sexual situations with her brother.
- Pacino doesn't want to be recognised, so he dresses like Bobo from MST3K? And they recognise him immediately?
- And why does his meeting Pacino look so much like an obvious composite shot?
- Why is Pacino so enamored of Jill? And why is he putting his all in this, of all films?
- You miss the Jared that scared us? Just wait a couple years. He'll be scary again in no time.
- How could there be a Grand Canyon with no God? Here's a good place to start.
- And an incident of anti-atheist violence is averted by cake?
- You know, I'm going up to Door County in a few days and the Door County Bakery's been reduced to carryout for COVID-related reasons. So driving around in search of a bakery is far more depressing than it should be.
- How does he see himself in her?
- And Pacino seriously has his own phone on WHILE HE'S ON STAGE AS KING LEAR? And the audience is loving it?
- And Caitlyn Jenner is still called Bruce. Yet another sign of this movie getting dated very fucking quickly.
- Of course, we get to see Jack turn himself into Jill and we see how little effort it required.
- "Hibbledy Glob, Shoelace."
- Pacino's justifying his crush on Jill by comparing himself to a mentally ill Spaniard who thinks a common streetwalker is a princess.
- Why is David Space in drag?
- And we have a long conversation scene between Jack and Jill in their unsubtitled idiolalia. It's supposed to be heartwarming, but it comes across like the unsubtitled sequence of Chewie's family from the Star Wars Holiday Special.
- And we end with the most fitting summation of this movie's status possible:
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.