Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Support the Girls’ on VOD, Regina Hall Gives One of the Year’s Best Performances

Writer/director Andrew Bujalski had bounced around the mumblecore scene, winning a Sundance prize for he low-fi indie Computer Chess, before making the film Results in 2015, starring Cobie Smulders and Guy Pearce as desperately dedicated fitness instructors. He’s back now with another slice of life look at exceptional people in unexceptional places with Support the Girls, which is currently playing in theaters and also available to rent on Prime Video, iTunes, and other streaming platforms. 

SUPPORT THE GIRLS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Lisa (Regina Hall) is the manager at a fictional Hooters knockoff called Double Whammies. She works hard to toe the line between managements piggish uniform requirements and racist policies (no more than one black girl allowed on shift at the same time) while also going the extra mile to be protective of the girls she supervises. Which can be a tricky business when business is luring men to your BBQ wing specials with the promise of waitresses wearing cut-offs. Flirt, but within limits. Entice the customers, but don’t tolerate abuse. It’s no wonder that Lisa’s personal life is slipping through her tightly-gripped fingers.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The film follows a single day in the operation of this restaurant, though an attempted robbery, problems with the cable TV, an off-books charity car wash (for a waitress who needs legal help to break free of her abusive boyfriend), and the movie I kept being reminded of was Clerks. Which is not to say that Support the Girls shares that movie’s particularly verbose comedic vibe.

Performance Worth Watching: Regina Hall is absolutely dynamite as Lisa, a character whose layers expand the more time you spend with her. She’s a dedicated worker who probably hates the place she works for; she genuinely loves the girls in her employ but consistently has to reprimand and even fire them per restaurant policy; she’s admirably in control of her work environment at the expense of her personal life. Hall has been an excellent actress in search of material that could match up to her talent for most of her career, and in this movie, she’s found it. Special credit also to Haley Lu Richardson (Split; The Edge of Seventeen), who plays the wildly, hilariously enthusiastic Maci, one of my favorite bits of comic relief in any movie this year.

Memorable Dialogue: This comes towards the end of the movie, so skip if you really want to experience the movie on its own. But as Lisa, Maci, and another server, Danyelle (Shayna McHayle), decompress near the end of the movie, Danyelle looks over at the eternally optimistic Maci with a smile: “You wouldn’t understand, Mace. You’re an angel sent from heaven to show the rest of us what a good attitude looks like.” And then a pause. “And for lonely old men to jerk off to.”

Single Best Shot: Maci again, this time as Bujalski has her surprise Lisa during one of Lisa’s low moments. She really IS an angel sent from heaven.

Sex and Skin: There are a bunch of young women in revealing Double Whammies uniforms, though you’re gonna feel like a real shit for ogling them after you watch the movie, so just know that.

Our Take: Personally speaking, Bujalski’s movies have never really connected with me, even if I could see what there is to be admired, as in Results. But Support the Girls did that trick and then some. This is a slice of life that speaks to so much of what life is like today, trying to toe that fine line between staying off of the chopping block while still trying to do good for yourself and other people. The women in this story are aggressed in ways big and small, and Bujalski is also careful to pinpoint how it’s not the same for every one of them. But there’s a real bond between characters there — dedicated Lisa, cheerful Maci, unvarnished Danyelle — and that really bonds the audience to them as well. The final half hour keeps Lisa off of the table for a bit too long, and you wish a few more storylines wrapped up more dynamically, but this is a movie to wrap your arms around. You know, metaphorically. Keep your hands to yourself, jeez.

Our Call: Stream It!

Where to stream Support the Girls