Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (November 5, 2024)
Best known for profane and rowdy characters in hits like Bridesmaids and The Heat, Melissa McCarthy tries something different with 2023’s Genie. This flick offers a family-friendly Christmas fable with large dollops of comedy and fantasy.
Due to the immense demands of his boss (Alan Cumming), Bernard Bottle (Paapa Essiedu) spends too many stressful hours at his job. This leads him to miss much of his family life so eventually Bernard’s wife Julie (Denée Benton) takes their eight-year-old daughter Eve (Jordyn McIntosh) and leaves him, at least for enough time to give their relationship’s future some thought.
Despondent, Bernard idly wipes dust off an antique box he found and this produces Flora (McCarthy), a millennia-old genie. Bernard enlists Flora’s assistance to win back his family and revive his life.
Genie arrives with a holiday pedigree, as it comes with a script from Richard Curtis. He both wrote and directed 2003’s Love Actually, a flick that became embraced as a Christmas classic over the last two decades.
Well, embraced by some. I found it to offer a sappy and largely charmless affair whose appeal escapes me.
Despite my disdain for that 2003 film, Curtis’s presence as screenwriter gives me some guarded optimism Genie will deliver a better project than its semi-cheesy plot implies. As the author of scripts for pretty good movies like Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’ Diary, Curtis clearly possesses talent.
Which one won’t find on display in Genie. This means the movie turns out just the way the concept hints it’ll be.
Despite the plot related to Bernard’s family troubles, Genie exists as a way to spotlight McCarthy’s comedic talents. And this works to a moderate degree.
As noted, Genie casts McCarthy as a less “R”-rated role than usual, but she makes the shift without a hitch. Indeed, virtually any entertainment we find from the movie stems from McCarthy’s performance.
Not that Flora offers a shift from what one would anticipate from that kind of role. As a character stuck in a box for two millennia, Flora experiences lots of “fish out of water” gags.
These tend to overwhelm the supposed main plot. Though ostensibly the lead, Bernard’s arc becomes secondary to Flora’s magical shenanigans and “stranger in a strange land” antics.
Curtis’s script finds little clever to do with these moments. Nonetheless, McCarthy gives it her best shot and delivers whatever minor amusement we locate here.
In order to facilitate these elements, Genie dispenses with the standard “three wishes” concept. One can argue that seems fair enough, as those limitations exist as a contrivance in the first place.
That said, I view this as a bad choice since it removes drama inherent to the genie genre. Part of the fun of a magical tale such as this revolves around the hard choices the wishing person confronts due to the ability to make so few requests.
However, because Genie devotes so much of its time to Flora’s antics, Curtis chooses to give Bernard unlimited wishes. This feels like a cheap gimmick that just means a thin plot becomes even sketchier.
Honestly, I shouldn’t even claim Genie comes with a plot. It exists as a collection of comedy scenes with a general character concept involved. This seems like a shockingly flimsy screenplay from a writer as experienced as Curtis.
Curtis seems almost pathologically eager to avoid the basic “man tries to win back his family” theme. Genie goes down a bunch of pointless subplots just to fill time, including one involving the theft of the Mona Lisa.
Seriously.
It also seems perplexing that Flora speaks and acts in such a 21st century manner. We learn that she remained confined to the box for 2000 years, but she talks and behaves like a modern person.
Again, this contrivance exists solely to push the movie’s narrative preference. Rather than pursue the main plot related to Bernard’s separation, it just wants to delve into Flora’s wackiness, and these moments would work less well if she spoke in a stilted “period” manner.
I can ignore the seeming anachronism of her knowledge of English, though, due to her magical powers. I guess one could argue this translates to her contemporary vibe, but given her confusion about so much related to modern society, the annoying disconnect exists.
Of course, I suspect I wouldn’t focus on these issues if I found more genuine entertainment from Genie. Unfortunately, it lacks much actual charm and becomes a contrived stab at a Christmas comedy that doesn’t click.
