Girl Most Likely opens with a point of view sequence charting its leading character through her seemingly enchanted and very posh Manhattan lifestyle. On her way to some highbrow event, even whilst not showing her face until nearly the end of a lengthy title sequence, she already appears prickly. At the end, a reflection-- it's that of Kristin Wiig, the gifted actress and extraordinary comedienne, the very same who turned a thousand undercooked sketches on
Saturday Night Live and spun them into a wealth of comedic opportunities because of her unexpected timing and naturalistic go-with-it charm, the same who turned the uproarious
Bridesmaids into that rare comedy that tapped into such a rarefied and wondrous exploration for feminine angst and rage. Over the years, Wiig has deservedly earned our attention because of adept will at mining character within caricature, cultivating a strong sense of warmth, compassion and independent verve that's disarming as it is funny. The first misstep in the sloppy and clunky
Girl Most Likely is that Wiig's character, Imogene, is introduced as nothing more than a vanity object for a man. It all starts out being about a boy.
Imogene is a promising playwright, or was once, having drifted past the stage in life where promising is still a complement, after giving it up for the uptown man of her elitist dreams. After he goes astray and she loses her job, things start to become desperate for Imogene. The only possible answer: to stage her own suicide so that her knight and shining armor will realize the error of his ways and the two will live out the rest of the their lives in wondrous harmony.
Girl Most Likely posits itself as a comedy, but there's little humor, merely strange and disparately connected asides. It plays a lot like its main character-- desperate to be loved, but too lazy to put in the proper work to earn it. Naturally, Imogene's grand scheme backfires and the pills she swallows put her back in the care of what she most strove to leave behind-- her mother. Annette Bening plays Zelda, Imogene's Jersey mother, an impulsive hot bed of actorly tics rolled into tacky outfits.
