Blonde ambition

Try to guess what this movie is based on its logline.  A blonde woman breaks up with her boyfriend and works to prove herself as a high-powered businesswoman, dispelling stereotypes about blondes and establishing herself as a success in her own right.  Working Girl? Nope. Legally Blonde? Closer! The film in question is Blonde Ambition, a 2007 trifle starring Jessica Simpson at the height of her…Simpson-ness. Though it’s tempting to dismiss the movie out of hand as cinematic trash (and much of the movie is exactly that), it has a little too much working in its favor to be written off entirely.

We begin with Jessica Simpson’s Katie Gregerstitch (I’m not making this up), who lives in small-town Minden, Louisiana.  (Why do I specify the town she’s from? Because she reminds every character in the movie about 500 times that she’s from Minden.) Her boyfriend (fiancée?) Billy gets whisked off to New York to live out his dream as a hand model, leaving her to mind the local store with her grandfather, Pappaw, played with gruff warmth by none other than Willie Nelson.  (To paraphrase Zach Galifianakis in Between Two Ferns: The Movie, my only questions for him are: what was the weed budget of this movie and how much of it have you smoked today?) After a few months, Katie goes to New York to surprise Billy, whom she hasn’t talked to since he left. Because, y’know, that’s acceptable behavior for an engaged couple. To no one’s surprise, she discovers him in bed with another woman and their relationship promptly ends. From there, she crashes with her cousin Haley (Rachel Leigh Cook, slumming). After a series of increasingly ludicrous events, she becomes a secretary in an office full of colorful characters, learning (and teaching) lessons about self-esteem, confidence, kindness, and gosh-darn it, Doing the Right Thing.

If this sounds ridiculous, it is. Put another way, if weed is legal in your state, I would highly recommend pairing it with this movie. (Might I suggest a nice sativa?) It’s almost too easy to tear this movie to shreds.  From the first frame, the ugly visuals smack you upside the head. I hesitate to describe it as ‘cinematography,’ but the film’s visual style is akin to something you would see on a D-list reality show, albeit with an even lower budget than any season of The Bachelor. On top of this, there’s a grossly cynical undercurrent to the movie; at one point, Katie undergoes a ‘transformation’ to suddenly become pretty, using Jessica Simpson-brand hair extensions—ew. And while Simpsons is charismatic enough and deserves credit for her willingness to poke fun at herself and engage in slapstick humor, no one would accuse her of being a good actress.  She reads every line with the same grating ‘Gee shucks’ earnestness.  (One idea for a drinking game, if you want to end up in the hospital—take a drink every time she dispenses folksy aphorisms.) Another unfortunate aspect of the movie is Karen McClain’s Betty—the sole black character who, until the very end of the movie, has no agency of her own and comes dangerously close to an Aunt Jemima depiction of blackness. At one point, another character tricks her by saying her nephew is waiting for her downstairs. Her response—“Tyrone?...We thought he was dead!”  Sigh.

But! But! Despite this cringey-bad dialogue and equally inane plotting, I found myself begrudgingly unwilling to completely disregard this movie, for one reason—the supporting cast. Luke Wilson’s Ben is a character he’s played 100 times before in other movies, and better, including in Legally Blonde. There is entertainment value to be derived from his casting though, which consists entirely of guessing what kind of blackmail was levied against him for him to be in this. Where the movie shines though is in the smaller recurring characters. I’m thinking primarily of Larry Miller’s Richard and Andy Dick’s Freddy. (Penelope Ann Miller’s Debra is too one-note to be of merit.) Both Miller and Dick are playing to their strengths here. Much like Wilson, they’re playing characters here that they’ve played a million times before. But unlike Wilson, they have ridiculous dialogue to sink their teeth into, and both seem to be genuinely enjoying themselves.  Miller is a master at balancing curmudgeonly exasperation and sassiness. This performance will remind you—in a good way—of his iconic role in 10 Things I Hate About You (a movie which reminds you that it’s a damn crime that there isn’t an Academy Award for casting). He counters Simpson’s earnest try-hard character with perfectly calibrated eye-rolls and line readings dripping with disdain, though not without compassion. Andy Dick is the other highlight in this film, playing the villain’s sidekick with such goofy, pansexual panache that you can’t wait to see more of him.  (One recurring gag is his constantly asking other characters to ‘punish’ him for his mistakes—it’s funnier than it sounds.)  His role is so quintessentially Andy Dick that I’m not convinced that he didn’t just wander onto set one day and start ad-libbing.  (To re-paraphrase Zach Galifianakis, what was the cocaine budget of this movie and how much of it have you snorted today?)

While I can’t conscientiously recommend you spend money on this movie, I can in good faith recommend you check it out on whatever third-tier streaming service is currently showing it. Ignore the problematic characterizations, the asinine dialogue and plotting, and cynical cash-grab tie-ins, and you’re left with a ridiculously loopy Frankenstein’s Monster of a movie, one that borrows liberally from other, much better movies, but manages to stay afloat purely on the merits of its supporting cast.