My daddy is the smartest person in the whole flat world

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Top 50 Movies of 2020...

#43 : Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Individual films don’t often change the course of history, but by humiliating Donald Trump acolyte Rudy Giuliani, this follow-up to Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2006 hit comedy may have done just that. This time around, the Kazakhstani journalist tries to offload his daughter Tutar (Maria Bakalova). 

Or "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" to give it its full title - which, of course, nobody in their right mind would do.

Another film I've not seen because, as you obviously know, I am a serious fellow and, as a rule, I don't like "comedy films".  There are obviously exceptions but generally I find that films that try to make me laugh have the opposite effect - the films that I laughed at most last year were Palm Springs and Bill And Ted Face The Music and there's an argument that neither of them are typical "comedy films".  I have, however, watched the original Borat and I remember laughing at it, but spending more time watching it open-mouthed wondering how he managed to get away with some of the stuff he did - and I was expecting this to be more of the same.

And, well, it is and it isn't.  There is still a lot of incredibly cringe-y stuff going but, from what I remember from the previous film, this one hangs together better by managing to include a bit of a story and having an ending that actually managed to surprise me by tying things up nicely - whilst obviously making absolutely no sense at all, of course!

Also (again from what I remember) a lot of this film is "nicer" - it really isn't that mean to the ordinary people in it (who are, as a rule, anything but ordinary).  It tends to either put them in awkward situations where they generally react as well as anyone might be expected to (and probably better than I would manage) or it aims more at the ridiculousness of the situation rather than the people involved.  The babysitter in particular comes across very well - I understand she felt conned, but she's got to be proud of the impression she gave and the messages she delivered.  The old Jewish ladies are also lovely - and the QAnon theorists come across as surprisingly nice as well (apparently he lived with them in character for 5 days).  You do wonder how much some people were in on the joke and also how much was filmed that just didn't come off and hence got thrown away, but there's little point in wasting your time on such things because you'll never know.

The only people who come across very badly are the politicians - the Rudy Giuliani stuff is simply incredible and you wonder how on earth they allowed Borat to get into a position he could get away with it (and I felt somewhat sad I wasn't watching it without knowing what was going to happen, because that really would have been a joy to watch).  Mike Pence's boasting about how Covid is all under control also really hasn't aged well, and again there's so much of the scene that you wonder how they managed to get away with it.

As well as a slightly "nicer" nature, the secret weapon of this film is Maria Bakalova because she plays her part really well and gives the film a lot more heart by giving you someone you "care" about on their journey, whilst at the same time you're completely aware of the ridiculousness of such feeling!  But it would be very easy for someone to play that part all wrong - her wide-eyed disbelief at times is a joy to behold.

One curiosity of the film is the amount of dialogue that happens in the "Kazakh" language - every so often I picked up on a recognisable phrase ("Stor-mee Dan-yells") but overall it just gave the impression I was missing out on a lot - and yes, I realise it's ridiculous for me to complain that I don't understand a load of made-up gibberish! 

You're obviously not going to watch this film for the plotting, sound design or the cinematography, although it's quite interesting to consider what tales they must have told in order to get the cameras into the places that they were able to film.  However, given my overall general disdain for comedy films, this is squarely in that category and I can report that it made me laugh out loud on several occasions - not quite as many times as I cringed, but a decent number nonetheless.  It also engaged me throughout and I enjoyed it considerably more than I was expecting - but there's no amount of money you could pay me to watch it with my daughters though (particularly the scene at the Republican womens' meeting!)

At the time of writing, the film is available on Amazon and is very likely to stay there for some time given it's an Amazon production - and there are plenty worse things you could spend your time watching!

#44 - Not convinced by this one
#42 - Another surprisingly enjoyable experience