VOD film review: Girls Trip
Review Overview
Comedy
10Heart
10Tiffany Haddish
10Andrew Jones | On 05, Dec 2017
Director: Malcolm D. Lee
Cast: Regina Hall, Tiffany Haddish, Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith
Certificate: 15
2017 saw what was totally a summer of women in cinema, and, while it was a big hit on the big screen, you may still not know of Girls Trip. The film sees Regina Hall, Jada Pinkett Smith, Tiffany Hadish (your new favourite funny person) and Queen Latifah play old friends reuniting for one last weekend of fun, frivolity and foul language, as they head to New Orleans to attend a music and culture festival celebrating African American women. Their lives have changed over time, their relationships sometimes strained, but it doesn’t stop them from being the naughtiest, filthiest and most enjoyable people in town.
Girls Trip unashamedly goes lowbrow often, but never in the lowest-common-denominator manner that you would associate with an Adam Sandler film; at the core of the movie are four wonderfully crafted characters played perfectly by each actor. We see montages of party shenanigans, swearing galore, lots of jokes about sexual techniques that are beyond niche and yet, when the film stops the plethora of laughs for honest-to-goodness emotional beats, it all works. It is that rare film that makes you laugh and cry full-on tears without ever feeling manipulative or shameless – for all its blowjob and pee jokes, the beating heart sticks out nicely and balances out even the most grotesque and silliest of skits.
Running at around two hours should be the death knell of a film like this, but there’s a reason Girls Trip ran and ran in cinemas and has spawned many GIFs online: it’s heartwarming, winning, cheerful, playful, fun and happy. Even when the characters go through well devised breakdowns and arguments, it doesn’t stop being the sweetest and funniest film this side of Paddington 2. Girls Trip is the best comedy of the year, the kind of movie that you see and then need to tell 10 friends about, because you’ll need people to quote it with – or to explain why you can never look at a grapefruit in the same way ever again.