Pun Salad

I've liked Iliza Shlesinger for a number of years, since I got hooked on her standup comedy specials on Netflix. Very funny, insightful, and (sorry kiddos) extremely raunchy. So I decided to take a chance on this Netflix-streamable movie. She wrote it, and she's the star, so…

The character she plays isn't much of a stretch: Andrea, a standup comic looking to break into acting. (Unfortunately, based on the excerpts we see from Andrea's routines, she's not nearly as funny as Iliza.) She's in her mid-thirties, and her professional life has overshadowed her romantic life, her relationships seem to be fleeting and shallow. Her best friend is Margot (played by Margaret Cho), lesbian bar owner, who keeps urging her to settle down before it's too late.

So Andrea meets this guy Dennis at the airport. And Dennis is charming in a dorky way. He's a Yale graduate, he's a hedge fund manager, he's got a house in Beverly Hills. Or at least (a spoiler you can pick up from the preview clip) that's what he claims. The movie follows their rocky relationship.

It's occasionally funny, but credibility is strained about two-thirds in when Andrea turns into a detective trying to find out the truth about Dennis, without wrecking their relationship. The movie claims to be based on Iliza's own experience, but I have a hard time believing that she could be as dumb as Andrea.