Cooking with Stella (2009), The Maid (2009), Date Night (2010)

Spring and summer naturally mean more comedies, and that's just as well after slogging through winter, winter movies, and particularly this year's crop of the same. For whatever reason, I tend not to lean toward comedy, and, when I do, I prefer my comedy spliced with something else, e.g. a hor-com like Shaun of the Dead or an action rom-com like Grosse Pointe Blank. Even so, I've been seeing a lot of comedies lately, and they disappoint more than they amuse.

First was Cooking with Stella (2009), in which the housekeeper (Seema Biswas) at the residence for a Canadian embassy worker in New Dehli who's been ripping off the household for years nearly has her plan derailed when the latest residents include a househusband (Don McKellar) who's also a chef and wants to learn Indian cookery from said housekeeper. The potential here is pretty good: Don McKellar, cooking, comedy spliced with a con. But here's the thing about a good con movie: you either need to believe that the con is harmless enough to the mark (e.g., he's so rich he won't miss a few mil) or that the mark is such a rube he almost has it coming. Neither is the case here. Michael (McKellar) obviously respects Stella (Biswas), so she . . . goes for the big con. By the third act everyone in the theatre around me just seemed tickled pink, laughing away, and I was clutching the arm rests and trying not to growl. If they had done one thing to make Stella in some way sympathetic -- given us the impression that she was making up for getting poorly paid, hinted at some massive debt she needed to clear, pointed out family she was supporting -- the end result would have been a lot different. I love a well executed con, and I'm willing to give points for trying. But this? Everyone kind of sucked, so there's no fun in watching them suck in varying ways. Also, almost all of Lisa Ray's dialogue sounded like bad ADR. C-

Initially, The Maid seemed like it was going to bother me just as much, if not even more. A maid (Catalina Saavedra) who's been with a family for 21 years, is getting sick and complaining of too much work, so the family offers to bring someone in to help her. Raquel (Saavedra) then sets about sabotaging everyone they bring in. This part drags on for way too long. I don't know whether to blame writer-director Sebastián Silva, Saavedra, or some combination of the two, but there is no insight into Raquel's psyche. We never get to the bottom of why she chooses to behave this way, and the mask posing as Saavedra's face doesn't provide any clues either. Even when we take time out to seemingly focus on Raquel's inner life, there's still nothing there: Raquel admires a cardigan in Mrs.' closet, so she buys the same one on her day off. Because of how she looked in the sweater? Because of how it made her feel? Because she feels she deserves sweaters just as nice (she gets one as a gift from the family early in the movie and makes a point of looking at the label, but we don't see the label and what do I know about Chilean labels anyway, so it's hard to judge)? Who knows? After the third maid, Lucy (Mariana Loyola), is brought in while Raquel is incapacitated with illness, and Lucy manages to crack through Raquel's . . . whatever it is that's the matter with Raquel . . ., the movie picks up considerably and packs quite a few laughs in. If only they had cut down the first hour to twenty minutes or so and given us the slightest window in Raquel's mental disorder, it could have been a great movie. B-

It's beyond obvious how hysterical Steve Carell and Tina Fey are, so throwing them together in front of a camera should achieve at least a few laughs. Throw them up there with some material that's actually funny and give them funny people to work with? You're cooking with fire. Date Night's not a perfect movie -- it drags when it focuses on the thriller angle over comedy -- but it's by far the best comedy I've seen all year. As a suburban married couple who try to get out of their rut by heading into the city for a dinner out and find themselves wanted by crooked cops for stealing a mobster's property, Carell and Fey hit the exact right balance between fish out of water and resourceful parents who love each other. By the time William Fitchner gets to deliver the line "sex robots," you're pretty much dying with laughter. I should feel bad/guilty/something negative about liking the Hollywood-delivered obvious choice in the comedy Olympics here, but I don't. Added bonus: Mark Ruffalo. I know you were thinking, "Shirtless Mark Wahlberg," but I prefer the opportunity to lean over to my viewing partner and whisper, "The Buffalo!" B+