Support the Girls

Regina King and coworkers in Support the Girls 

Andrew Bujalski's Support the Girls is an intermittently engaging portrait of the staff at a Hooters like restaurant. The film is chiefly a vehicle for Regina King who portrays the establishment's manager. Her character's travails within the twenty four hours period of the film are overloaded: she splits with her diffident romantic partner, puts on a fundraiser for an allegedly injured colleague and decides that she needs to seek new career opportunities. Bujalski telegraphs his message by having one of the "girls" voice her love for her work "family" at the denouement.

Support the Girls continues the trajectory of Bujalski's films' exploration of subcultures within the US. Its feminism and critique of capitalism are more explicit than heretofore, perhaps overly so. Haley Lu Richardson and James Le Gros are effective. Dylan Gelula and Shayna McHayle (aka Junglepussy) less so. Ms. King's performance has been justly laureled. She gives Support the Girls its focus and never seems false or actorly.

I ultimately support the film because of its humanism and because it displays an advancement in Bujalski's skill as a visual storyteller. Dialogue has been a strength of Bujalski since his mumblecore days, but Support the Girls marks the first time he has succeeded in showing, rather than telling, how his characters' feel. The title sequence with its shots of autos criss-crossing freeways establishes the curvy sports bar as a way station for those seeking respite from the rat's maze of capitalist culture. Bujalski's pans between the staff members in the bar warmly celebrates the camaraderie and fortitude of a team more worth honoring than the greats of the gridiron pictured on its video screens. (1/8/19)