Dir. Miguel Arteta
Tiffany Haddish once said it was her goal to film fifty movies in her lifetime, they wouldn’t all be good movies but they would be movies. With Like A Boss, she succeeded in adding to her film count but that’s about it. Like A Boss feels like a waste of potential; Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne both have excellent comedic chops but they’re undercut by a script that doesn’t give them much to work with. I was looking forward to a funny film centered on female friendship but the movie was short on laughs and weirdly, friendship.
The movie follows Mia and Mel (Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne, respectively), two childhood best friends who have stuck together through the years to eventually create a seemingly successful cosmetic line. (Seemingly successful but they’re also swimming in debt, which isn’t impossible but the more nitpicky part of my brain wanted a better explanation). It seems like their financial problems are solved when Clara Luna (Salma Hayek in an over the top turn of what could only be described as corporate drag queen), CEO of a cosmetic megabrand expresses interest in buying their company. She offers to cover their debts for 49% of the company, with the caveat that if either Mia or Mel quit, she gets controlling interest. Of course from there she tries to turn Mia and Mel against each other as they try to come up with a new pitch for a major make-up presentation in six weeks. Antics ensue.
The most immediately disappointing thing about this movie is that it isn’t funny. The hardest laughs in my theater were all from jokes prominently shown in the trailers. I can think of maybe two non-trailer jokes I laughed at and one of them was about Caillou. (I just love the way parents hate him.) For most of the movie I was straight-faced, aware that jokes were being attempted but rarely even breaking a smile. Billy Porter is charming with what he has as their long time employee Barrett. He has one of the funniest scenes but again it’s spoiled by the trailer. Jennifer Coolidge plays another employee doing the Jennifer Coolidge things she’s been doing for the last 25 years. It’s not very effective in this one.
The press around this movie also strongly pushes a “friendship is magic, no men necessary” message which I can appreciate as a concept, but fails in the execution. Despite the chemistry between the leads, most of the depth of the friendship is delivered via exposition rather than shown on screen. We are told over and over that these characters are closer than sisters, “platonic lifemates” according to Barrett, yet in what seems to be only a week they dissolve their whole friendship over a work presentation. Clara Luna’s meddling is sophomoric and any moderately intelligent person would easily see what she is trying to do. Yet Mia and Mel nearly come to blows over an evil scheme that is essentially “pssst…I heard she said this about you behind your back.” Embarrassing for a relationship that’s allegedly endured 20 years of friendship, childhood abandonment, college, and the trials and tribulations of starting a business together.
Coming in just under 90 minutes, this film has no right to feel as interminable as it does. In turns cliche and lazy, this movie hamstrings it’s charismatic leads from any kind of smart comedy for trailer bait of Tiffany Haddish vomiting and throwing her weave. Rose Byrne dances badly and they hope you laugh. They both deserved better.