Wine Country

Wine Country is the directorial debut of Amy Poehler who also stars in the movie along with six other women (Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph, Tina Frey, Paula Pell, Emily Spivey) who are all connected via Saturday Night Live. The movie is about six older women who all come together to go on a wine country trip for their friend (Rachel Dratch) who is turning fifty years old. With this much talent from a comedy show like SNL you would expect it to be a pretty darn funny road tripesque journey through Napa. Nope, it’s about six women all going through some sort of depression or crisis and them trying to play it off until they all reach their breaking points. There are a couple of funny moments in the movie, but not anything laugh out loud funny and some I was probably laughing for the wrong reasons. Jason Schwartzman is this kinda house keeper / tour guide that comes with the house they rented who has nothing to do with anything really, he pops in here and there drives the bus and just feels there to give a little break up from the group of women, there’s a rolling gag involving him making a paella that you think its going to go somewhere and it doesn’t. Tina Fey plays the woman who is renting out her house to this group and is over doing it with the performance, feels out of place.With this much talent it falls short on the laughs and doesn’t let the dramatic parts expand, the other problem I had was there are some oddly framed shots in this especially when two people are talking that to me shows that Amy Poehler still has some practice to do directing before hitting the big leagues, I say skip Wine Country and revisit or discover Sideways. D.