An odd thing happens about 15 minutes into Miss March. The
comedy, which until that point is desperate and met with uncomfortable
audience silence, is suddenly funny. But it isn’t meant to last.
Director/writer/star duo Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore (of MTV’s
The Whitest Kids U Know) hit when the comedy is physical. But
they go too far trying to make their sex-driven characters Eugene
(Cregger) and Tucker (Moore) endearing, and as a result they’ve made
themselves grating. Moore seems like he’s stuck in the late ’90s doing
his best Matthew Lillard (Scream, Dead Man’s Curve)
impression.
On a quest to reunite Eugene with the prom date to whom he was
supposed to lose his virginity (a plot fumbled when he opened the wrong
door, fell down a staircase and went into a coma for four years while
she became a Playboy bunny), their road trip isn’t a sharp
cross-cultural odyssey like Harold and Kumar’s first venture. The
satire lacks focus: Tucker’s sexual boasting represents his insecurity
with women, but when Hugh Hefner delivers a speech on inner beauty, it
doesn’t gel with the degrading climactic shock gag.
Miss March has the worst lighting of any mainstream film in a
long time, but is never anarchic enough in spirit to excuse that lack
of polish. Occasional belly laughs slip through, but the movie doesn’t
have the attention to realize its own strengths.
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2009.