Review of Butter (2012) by Ronni B — 17 Sep 2012

It should never come as a surprise when a film that has sat on a shelf for a year waiting to be released fails to make a strong impact, but that doesn't make it any less disappointing. Butter, which premiered at last year's Telluride Film Festival, was initially set for a March debut but got kicked down the road to October 5 and now that I've seen it, I know why. Like the food product that its named after - it's just not good for you.

Like I said, with the long release delay a dud was to be expected, but what makes this one disappointing is how much potential it seemed to have. Set in my home state of Iowa, Butter features Jennifer Garner as Laura Pickler, a busy body wife of the state's famed State Fair butter carving champion, Bob Pickler (Modern Family's Ty Burrell), who has her eye on high political office until Bob is asked to step down from the competition to give someone else a chance to win. This kindly Midwestern gesture is seen as fair to everyone except Laura who refuses to give up her family's butter carving crown and enters the competition herself despite no previous experience in the art form.

In the contest Laura faces off against a cat lady mega-fan of Bob's (Kristen Schaal), a stripper/prostitute who Bob has slept with and owes money (Olivia Wilde), and a young African American girl named Destiny (Yara Shahidi) who has just been planted in yet another foster home under the care of Alicia Silverstone and Rob Corddry.

Destiny proves to be a natural talent at butter carving and emerges as Laura's biggest threat to the title, which prompts her to seek some cheating help from a former lover and used car salesman played by Hugh Jackman in a role far beneath his talents.

There is a scattering of good one-liners throughout the film that hint at a quirkier and more interesting movie underneath, but ultimately the proceedings are bogged down with a very predictable and conventional script that takes the less intriguing path at just about every turn. I mean, here we have a movie about people who carve things like The Last Supper, Schindler's List, and the JFK assassination out of large chunks of butter at the Iowa State Fair and you choose to have the two main competitors be a happy-go-lucky foster kid doing it on a whim and a lunatic wife of a champion carver with no experience? I wanted to see die hard butter carvers competing as if their lives depended on it and for no reason other than they love carving butter!

During the film I found myself stopping to think what someone like Christopher Guest (Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman) could have done with this backdrop and potential characters, which only served to make what I was actually viewing all the more lackluster.

But then again its not my job to call out a movie for what it could have been. I can only judge it by what actually ended up on screen and frankly there isn't a whole lot to praise. For me, the biggest mistake was casting Garner as the film's lead. It should be noted that as the producer of the film she essentially cast herself so she really only has herself to blame, but its just not the right part for her. Her woeful attempt at an Iowan accent (which just comes off as a poor Michelle Bachmann/Sarah Palin impression) and the general attitude of the character make the performance come off as an obnoxious caricature rather than a believable, living person and the whole movie suffers for it.

Other actors are able to sneak in with some memorable moments but many of them are so disjointed that it feels like director Jim Field Smith was actually making two or three different movies. This is compounded by the weird fact that both Laura and Destiny give voice over narration throughout the film leaving it a bit unclear who our true narrator is or why we should need to hear from both of them other than as a lazy screenwriting device to deliver exposition.

But that's not all: Laura's home life is never shown as something other than terrible (which negates the eye-rolling attempt at a sappy, happy ending), the actual carving competitions lack any drama or intrigue whatsoever, groan inducing speeches are peppered throughout the film but come with no emotional oomph, and all of this is backed up with a musical score that would sound more fitting in a direct-to-DVD children's movie punctuating every emotional note with how we should be feeling every step of the way.

So despite a few laughs and a blessedly short running time, Butter is almost a complete waste of time and effort. In fact, I feel confident in proclaiming that even Paula Deen wouldn't cook with it.

Grade: C-.