Quiz Lady (2023)
Directed by Jessica Yu
Written by Jen D'Angelo
Starring Awkwafina, Sandra Oh, Will Ferrell, Jason Schwartzman, Holland Taylor
Release Date November 3rd, 2023
Published November 7th, 2023
Quiz Lady is a curiously boring movie. Despite having a spitfire star in comedian and actor Awkwafina, Quiz Lady sputters and drags its way through a dimwitted plot on the way to an unearned happy ending. As someone who is a huge fan of Awkwafina's work, Quiz Lady is uniquely disappointing. Playing against type as a grumpy, frumpy, afraid of the world shut-in, the typically appealing qualities of Awkwafina are dialed back to nothing. Why would anyone want to make a live wire like Awkwafina into a wet blanket? It makes no sense.
In Quiz Lady, Awkwafina plays Anne Yum, an office worker who is obsessed with a Jeopardy-style quiz show, Can't Stop the Quiz. Hosted by Terry McTeer, the show became a life preserver for young Anne when her parents broke up. Since then, Anne has never missed an episode. She's memorized the questions, and is so familiar with the trivia and tropes, she can reel off the answers to any question right off the top of her head. No one knows yet that she can do this, she doesn't get out of the house much.
Naturally, that state of affairs will change. Anne's ordered, shut-in, life is upended when her mother goes missing from her nursing home. The disappearance leads to the return home of Anne's tornado of a sister, Jenny (Sandra Oh). Jenny is homeless and jobless, couch-surfing while she waits for what she claims will be a big payout from a lawsuit she filed against a chain restaurant. Jenny is coming home to stay but not long after arriving, she puts her sister on a path to get out of the house.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media
