Giuseppe Andrews’ Orzo

They say that comedy isn’t pretty. Whoever coined that phrase (it may have been Steve Martin) never saw a Giuseppe Andrews’ film. If they did, they’d modify the phrase to state comedy shouldn’t be pretty. In a world long past the clipped and clever wit of a British drawing room farce, or beyond a manic Marx Brothers satire, humor has found a need to be dirty. Where once it was calm and collected, it now hankers to be down and disgusting. While it shouldn’t venture totally into the gangrenous gross out trap that so many filmmakers fall into, it should know when to skim the cesspool and pick out the chunks, so to speak. In his latest RV based magnum opus, Andrews employs such a sound strategy. Half the time, Orzo finds its funny business in its personalities. The rest of the time it’s pure raunch.

Toggle Switch is a little person living in a world of her own design. Deadly with pets, and equally unhinged with her family, she spends her days watching exercise videos and her nights in pursuit of various bizarre extracurricular activities. Her daughter is married to an ex-con, a sex toy bandit with an insatiable urge to steal dildos and bury them in the back yard. He has a hard time balancing a life of freedom. He is constantly reminded of the cellmate who showed him a better way of being. Along the way, we meet a bearded 12 year old, a closet junkie, and the skinniest fitness guru in the entire self-help universe, all getting by on chutzpah, camaraderie, and a healthy dose of vagina-based show tunes.

Orzo is by far the funniest thing Giuseppe Andrews has ever done. It’s a comedy plain and simple, a character-based humoresque that proves the actor’s mantle as both a writer and a wit. Equaling the high school toilet trappings of Judd Apatow while never venturing too far from his masterful mobile home roots, this amazing mini-epic may just top everything he’s done in the past. While other efforts in the Andrews canon have relied on occasional gimmickry and mannered moviemaking to get by (not that there is anything wrong with such a stylized approach – especially in his hands), Orzo is the first time that pure individual idiosyncrasy rules the narrative. There’s no big picture pontification (as in Garbanzo Gas) or straight ahead scatology (Period Piece). Instead, this is a day in the life dowsed in demented, frequently scatological, satisfaction.

Like Tyree and Bill Nolan before, Andrews seems to have found a new muse in undersized actress Karen Bo Baron. As Toggle Switch, her line readings and emotional cues are printed on the page performance oriented. There are even moments when her lack of skill is showcased to dazzling (if difficult) effect. But that’s the beauty of a film like Orzo. Andrews lets people be themselves, whether it’s old and rickety, young and dumb, or skilled and streetwise. It’s clear that he finds something mesmerizing in Baron’s demeanor, and we find ourselves falling under her spell as well. Other regulars, including Ed, Walter Patterson, and Marybeth Spychalski, provide ample support for this novice’s rising stardom. As in all of Andrews’ work, they stand as the backbone for the big gun’s fire power.

Even our whisper thin hero gets into the act, playing the lamest personal trainer since Richard Simmons discovered short shorts. Decked out in a well-enhanced banana sling, and gyrating for his female clients, Andrews delivers some of the biggest laughs in the film during a gangly, gyrating strip show. Similarly, the brilliant Vietnam Ron plays the prisoner who left a big impression on Toggle Switch’s son-in-law. As he does with every acting turn, he takes very little and magically transforms it into a work of living art. Indeed, the best way to describe Orzo and any other Andrews’ film is as a breathing, writhing work of aesthetic genius. Very few filmmakers, no matter their Tinsel Town categorization, can claim that.

Yet perhaps the most intriguing part of this film is the undeniable growth Andrews continues to show. Where before, his efforts seemed tied to a true outsider idea of cinema, a desire to rewrite the language of the medium to fit his own idea of expression, now, he is incorporating more mainstream fundamentals, moving away from the reading-only strategies of something like Trailer Town and into more character based interaction. The scenes between Toggle Switch and her family crackle with a kind of interconnectivity that we haven’t really experiences before in an Andrews work. Where previously the players on screen seemed to be talking AT each other, there is a newfound sense of them talking to each other – and saying some very significant things.

In addition, Andrews is using the camera more, avoiding the point and shoot scenarios that have many complaining about his lack of craft. There is still a great deal of POV perspective being used, a way of getting the audience directly involved in the action. One of the many joys a viewer has when watching a film like Orzo is the notion of being one of the party, a person actually participating in the adventures playing out. Along with the new desire to incorporate delightfully dumb F/X into the narrative – we get a raven attack complete with light saber, and a BMX bike jump, all done via hilarious optical processes – Andrews is clearly changing.

When all is said and done, it’s the laughs that linger long after Orzo draws to a close. Rib tickling doesn’t get more ridiculous than this, a combination of factors guaranteed to get you giggling. By using various made-up words, clear interpersonal dynamics, and an attention to the way human beings interact that underscores Andrews’ understanding of people. Even if someone failed to see the specialness present in what this amazing filmmaker creates as part of the artform’s elements, his ability to turn the regular into something regal, to find the inherent grace and beauty in the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, and the different remains this director’s undeniable gift. While it’s true that very little of the physical world exists in Andrews’ unusual universe, he does reflect the kind of fringe dwelling dominion were magic happens. And Orzo is enchanted indeed.