Netflix’s “The Wrong Missy” is not the kind of counter-programming people wanted in place of “The French Dispatch” this summer. This David Spade-starring romantic-comedy follows the same schema as Adam Sandler’s Netflix goof-fests; there’s a lot of silliness, a lot of crude humor, and plenty of slapstick. No wonder Sandler’s own production company, Happy Madison, produced this laughably bad rom-com. Beware of a comedy where the main character falls off a cliff, not to mention hitting rocks and trees on the way down, and still, somehow, miraculously, survives. Even turning your brain off for this one might not be enough to suffer through its hellish 90-minute runtime.
You know you’re in trouble when the biggest laughs in your movie come from a Rob Schneider cameo. “The Wrong Missy” could very well be a hit for Netflix, but mostly because the streaming giant’s audiences have been willing to tolerate, hell embrace, this kind of dumbed-down comedy over the years.
Lauren Lapkus plays Missy, a mentally unstable woman, with psychopathic tendencies, who, after a disastrous blind date, ends up joining Spade’s corporate stooge Tim Morris at a resort vacation in Hawaii, after he mistakenly sends an invitation-by-text to her instead of another woman. She’s the wrong missy, get it?
The mean-spirited humor this movie disposes of feels like a lower-grade version of Sandler’s middle-of-the-road Netflix comedies. The main problem is that Spade, an actor who made a career out of being Chris Farley’s snide sidekick in “Tommy Boy” and “Black Sheep,” is not a leading man, never was and never will be. Meanwhile, Missy is such an annoyingly contrived and ADD-inflicted character that her out-of-control style turns us off the minute she appears on-screen. There is nothing believable about Missy, which is a real shame because Lapkus is a talented comedian, but this anarchic brand of idiotic comedy plays contrary t her strengths.
Spade was once a comedy star in the ‘90s. However, after “Joe Dirt” Spade’s star faded and he was mostly relegated to box-office bombs (“Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star,” “The Benchwarmers,”) and cameos in Sandler movies (although Spade’s Wikipedia does mention “Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser” exists and was released straight to Crackle in 2015). In “The Wrong Missy” he’s being given a shot to prove himself able to lead a movie again, the result is nothing short of catastrophic. [F]
“The Wrong Missy” is available now on Netflix.
Will Academy voters feel the same way? Directors tend to respect directors who swing big, and having Villeneuve publicly champion your film doesn't hurt.