ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The arts can be a tricky business to break into, especially with theatre, and especially if you happen to be a woman. Recently, Chelsea Peretti (best known for her role on the show “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) attempted to bring that to life with her directorial debut, “First Time Female Director.”
In the film, aspiring writer Sam Clifford (Peretti) is thrust into the role of director when her theater's director is fired. Chosen by the theater's artistic director, Sheldon (Andy Richter), Sam is asked to direct the theater's upcoming play, with some ... interesting results, to put it politely.
To put things rather bluntly, the movie wastes so many opportunities to actually be good. The story is rather slapdash and throughout the movie, it feels like there’s too much trying to be done, and the end result is rather a mess. To me, it felt like the movie couldn’t decide to be a full-on comedy about what goes into putting a stage production together or more along the lines of a mockumentary about Sam’s new role and how she handled everything. Had the movie gone more along the lines of something like the comedy “Noises Off” or any of the segments from the “Documentary NOW!” series and had a more clear storyline, I feel like the film would have been way, way more successful. Another theme that could have easily been explored is a lack of support provided to women for success – every woman has dealt with that at some point in their career and while things are starting to get better in that regard, there are many improvements to be made. I’m guessing Peretti herself has dealt with that throughout her own career, and this movie could have been a good time for Peretti to make a bit of a statement. Any of those ideas, written well and given a clear focus, could have made this movie really good, but the movie seems to want to push for silliness, and outlandishness instead of telling a good story. Overall, it almost felt like there wasn’t a fully clear vision of what the movie’s overall tone was supposed to be, and it made the movie a rather frustrating watch to me.
Something else I found rather tiring rather quickly was how all the characters were just stereotypes that have already been done many, MANY times before, and literally no one gets the chance for anything remotely resembling character development, and I found that extremely annoying. Thankfully, the movie is only slightly more than 90 minutes (though it feels WAY longer), so I didn’t have to deal with that for too long. One of the stereotypes I found particularly annoying was with Davina (Megan Stalter, who’s actually pretty funny), who seems to be welded to her phone throughout most of the movie – during those moments, I wanted to actually say out loud “NOT EVERY YOUNG ADULT IS OBSESSED WITH THEIR PHONES.” Yes, I know some people have a problem with extraneous screen time and too much technology, but I’m getting VERY tired of the “young woman obsessed with being online/on her phone 24/7” trope, and I wish it would die off. One a slightly positive note in that regard, however, it’s clear Peretti and her cast are enthusiastic about this project, but it’s hard to share in that enthusiasm given the many missteps throughout the movie. Overall, the characterization could have been done much, MUCH better and I would have preferred the characters to actually be people instead of just stereotypes.
One of the few aspects the movie gets right (or at least attempts to) is the competitive nature within theatre and the performing arts, particularly about three-fourths into the movie when Sam sees her friend Star (Xosha Roquemore) find success with her own production, which further sends her on her downward spiral. However, the aftermath of that outing results in further bad writing that actually made me wonder “Why/how did ANYONE think that would actually be successful?” This would have been another EXCELLENT theme to explore, but again, the lack of a clear vision mars what could have been a really good movie.
Unfortunately, the film’s weaknesses go beyond the writing into the technical aspects. There are multiple times when I questioned the cinematography choices (such as slow-mo and other similar effects) because they were just so out there and just absolutely did not fit in, making the film feel downright janky, for lack of a better word. The technical aspects fall under the umbrella of failing due to the movie trying to do too much, and it just overall didn’t work for me.
Overall, Chelsea Peretti’s directorial debut with “First Time Female Director” suffers from too many missteps and wasted potential, and I would give it a “D” grade. The writing/screenplay could have used a lot of improvement and had there been a clear, unified vision for the story, the movie would have been much more successful. The characterization could have also been done much better and I would have preferred to see actual human characters instead of mere stereotypes that have already been done too many times to count. The movie’s technical aspects also leave a lot to be desired, with there being many rather questionable cinematography choices throughout. If Peretti ends up continuing with a directing career, hopefully she gets better material to work with. The movie is available through The Roku Channel.
