Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Quiz Lady’ on Hulu, Loosey-Goosey Comedy Fun From Awkwafina and Sandra Oh

This week on You Should Have Your Head Examined If You Don’t Want To See This Theater is Quiz Lady (now streaming on Hulu), which pairs eternally funny ladies Awkwafina and Sandra Oh as opposite-personality sisters, and casts Will Ferrell as the host of a Jeopardy!-derived game show host, therefore paying meta-homage to the classic Alex Trebek impression he employed during his SNL days. I could tell you that Jessica Yu directed it and Jen D’Angelo (Hocus Pocus 2, Totally Killer) wrote it and Jason Schwartzman and Tony Hale have supporting roles in it, but by this point you should be ceasing reading this and mashing PLAY on one of the funniest movies of 2023.  

QUIZ LADY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: You sure they’re from the same womb? Anne (Awkwafina) walks around with her shoulders slumped and has Bad Bangs and would seemingly rather be eaten alive by rabid barracuda than have another person ever notice she exists; of course she’s an accountant, of course. Her older sister Jenny is loud and brash and seems to have acquired her wardrobe at Babymetal’s garage sale; of course she’s unemployed, of course. Jenny has all sorts of huge impossible dreams, and Anne has zero dreams; Jenny is a megaslob, and Anne is a persnickety neatnik. Maybe they have different fathers? Maybe there was a mixup in the maternity ward? Maybe one had their brain zapped by aliens at a young age? That last one’s probably it.

Anne grinds spreadsheets at C.P. Yay! all day, then goes home to watch Can’t Stop the Quiz because she’s been a superfan of the game show since she was a kid, turning up the volume to cover the painful sounds of her parents fighting, her sweet pug Mr. Linguine by her side. She has a bobblehead of host Terry McTeer (Ferrell) on her shelf, and she sits on the couch watching with the now-ancient Mr. Linguine, firing off correct answers like a savant. If she could get over her deep insecurities about being seen, she could audition for the show and OBLITERATE that smug, vain, phony-ass fartknocker Ron Heacock (Schwartzman), the reigning CSQ champion who she hates, just hates. But, like I said, zero dreams. Zero! Nothing to see here, move along, move along.

This woman, she needs fate to intervene. So it does: Anne’s mother runs away from the nursing home, leaving behind $80,000 in gambling debt to some thug bookies. Hmm. How could Anne possibly come up with $80k? And then, Jenny crashes through her front door, a trail of neon-blue hair extensions and beauty products in her wake, with a typically half-assed new “career” as a self-taught life coach (“Just like Oprah!”, she shrieks). The obvious answer to Anne’s situation is to sell her car and take out a loan, not to have Jenny secretly film her crushing it at CSQ, posting the video online, watching her go viral as the “Quiz Lady,” earning her an audition and pushing her into the trunk so she’ll actually go to it. Meanwhile, the bookies kidnap Mr. Linguine, which just sweetens the motivational pot. Chaos reigns! And Anne ain’t happy about it.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is Quiz Show meets Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar, and it might be my favorite game-show-based movie since The Running Man.

Performance Worth Watching: Awkwafina-is-fed-up scenes are among my favorite movie scenes. It also turns out that Oh-is-an-obnoxious-crackpot scenes are also among my favorite movie scenes. So flip a coin, because I can’t pick which performance I loved more.

Memorable Dialogue: Sample sisterly exchange: 

Anne: Why am I always a man in your hypotheticals?

Jenny: Because men are worse.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Don’t do the math on the dog’s age – it might positively SHATTER your suspension of disbelief. Beyond that, Quiz Lady is endearingly loose in its plotting, deeply silly, and sweet without being overly saccharine. Yu makes the most of the Oh/Awkwafina pairing, taking a boilerplate odd-couple dynamic and luring out goofy eccentricities in their performances. Each is ridiculous within the parameters of their character types, finding some emotional nuance within amusingly combative verbal exchanges and OTT slapstick (yes, Awkwafina’s fatal-introvert body language may not be flashy, but it’s absolutely a slapstick variant). That Yu and her inspired leads can make a hackneyed bit like an ill-timed accidental drug trip not only functional, but funny, feels almost miraculous. 

The movie’s lack of focus might be an issue if its jokes didn’t land with such delightful frequency. Sidebar bits include recurring exchanges with Anne’s wacky-senior neighbor (a comedically on-point Holland Taylor), and a loony Ben Franklin impersonator played by Tony Hale. Ferrell’s take on the doofy quiz-show host is part Wonka and part Trebek, part milk and part toast, and wholly endearing in its gentle charm; he nurtures a feelgood vibe that doesn’t feel forced or shamelessly manipulative. Even if D’Angelo’s script meanders here and there, poking genial fun at liberal-PC sympathies towards Asian-American women and deviating into spoof territory, it’s consistently funny. Quiz Lady may be a bit scattered, but so what? I was laughing too damn hard to care.

Our Call: Quiz Lady is a potpourri lightning round of jokes, and the highly effective comedy duo of Oh and Awkwafina execute them expertly. STREAM IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.