Themes: Fish Out of Water, Teachers and Students, High School Life
Main Cast: Amy Sedaris, Deborah Rush, Carlo Alban, Maria Thayer, Paul Dinello, Stephen Colbert
Release Year: 2005
Country: US
Run Time: 97 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
The cult-favorite television series which offered a fun-house version of '70s "after-school specials" returns in this big-screen prequel to the show Strangers With Candy. Middle-aged ex-prostitute, former drug addict and all-around lowlife Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris) emerges from prison at the age of 46 ready to start her life over again. Jerri arrives at her parents' home to discover that her father Guy (Dan Hedaya) divorced Jerri's mom and remarried before slipping into a coma. Jerri's stepmom Sara (Deborah Rush) decides to let her stay with the family in the hope her presence might bring Guy around, though she doesn't seem very fond of her new "daughter." Jerri decides to complete the education she abandoned years ago by enrolling at Flatpoint High School, where Principal Blackman (Greg Hollimon) has bigger fish to fry than a middle-aged sex offender as a student. It seems Flatpoint's science scores have been dreadful, and only a first-place entry in the county science fair will maintain the school's accreditation. Science fair guru Roger Beekman (Matthew Broderick) is brought in with hopes of creating a winning project, but science teacher Mr. Noblet (Stephen Colbert) objects to using outside talent and starts a separate team of his own, bringing in Jerri to give her something to do. As it happens, Noblet's team comes up with a potential prize-winner with their Soup Can Superconductor, while Beekman foolishly accepts the help of art teacher Mr. Jellineck (Paul Dinello) and ends up with a dance routine instead of a science presentation. Determined to win out over Noblet's team, Beekman tries to get his hand on the plans for Noblet's project by convincing handsome Brason (Chris Pratt) to charm them away from weak-willed Jerri. Strangers With Candy also features cameo appearances from Philip Seymour Hoffman, Allison Janney, Ian Holm, and Kristen Johnston. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
When Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert's grotesquely hilarious Afterschool Special parody went off the air after a memorable three-season run back in 2000, many fans of the fearlessly irreverent Comedy Central series worried that they had seen the last of snaggletoothed, fortysomething ex-junkie prostitute Jerri Blank. Five years later, the self-confessed "boozer, user, and loser" is back, and ready to take on high-school life once again in a feature-film version of the series that essentially starts from scratch to tell just how Flatpoint High's strangest student tried to pick her life up exactly where she left off 32 years ago. Though the big-screen incarnation of the alternately unsettling and hilarious series does manage to successfully capture the off-kilter tone of its small screen counterpart, there's something decidedly restrained about the proceedings that shackles the film from ever reaching the truly manic heights of the product from which it spawned. Seemingly faced with the daunting challenge of delivering the goods to die-hard Concrete Donkey fans while simultaneously converting the uninitiated, writers Sedaris, Dinello, and Colbert skillfully retain many of the best elements of the show by bringing along a majority of the most memorable characters (though sometimes portrayed by different actors) and cleverly recycling a few of the most memorable jokes. Despite an R rating that likely had many fans salivating at the thought of just how far the feature version might be willing to go in upping the ante of the show in which rampant drug use, repulsive genital piercings, and lewd, decidedly un-PC dialogue was fairly standard, the feature film version of Strangers With Candy surprisingly comes off as a somewhat watered-down version of the original series. Of course, that's not to say that longtime fans won't find the film as entertaining as the series -- it's about as consistently funny as the average episode -- just that it doesn't seem particularly interested in breaking any new ground. While some may view this as a drawback considering the time that has passed between the series and the feature, fans who simply wanted to spend a little more time in the hallowed halls of Flatpoint High will likely welcome the opportunity to see Dinello, Colbert, and Sedaris have a blast as they bring their bizarre antics to the big screen. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Chris Pratt - Brason; Elisabeth Harnois - Monica; Joseph Cross - Derrick Blank; Greg Hollimon - Principal Blackman; Dan Hedaya - Guy Blank; Matthew Broderick - Roger Beekman; David Pasquesi - Stew; Alexis Dziena - Melissa; Ian Holm - Dr. Putney; Sarah Jessica Parker - Peggy Callas; Allison Janney - Alice; Philip Seymour Hoffman - Henry; Lian Moy - Lian; Jeremy Chu - Jeremy; Olivia Oguma - Olivia; Hechter Ubarry - Nico; Delores Duffy - Iris Puffybush; Michael Rivera - Maniaco; Evelyn McGee - Claire Noblet; Jonah Bobo - Shamus Noblet; Timothy Hsu - Mascot; Chris Larkin - Kim; Wallace Little - Trake; Chandra Wilson - Reba; Kristy Thomas - Wanda; Tom Guiry - P John; Calvin Robertson - Les Tuckles; Kristen Johnston - Coach Divers; Justin Theroux - Carlo Honklin
Credit
Mylene Santos - Art Director, Joseph Middleton - Casting, Richard Move - Choreography, Stephen Colbert - Co-producer, Victoria Farrell - Costume Designer, Jeffrey Lazar - First Assistant Director, Paul Dinello - Director, Michael R. Miller - Editor, David Letterman - Executive Producer, Rob Burnett - Executive Producer, Fred Nigro - Executive Producer, Jennifer L. Booth - Line Producer, Marcelo Zarvos - Composer (Music Score), Kabuki - Makeup, Teresa Mastropiero - Production Designer, Oliver Bokelberg - Cinematographer, Mark Roberts - Producer, Lorena David - Producer, Valerie Schaer Nathanson - Producer, Sandy Berman - Sound/Sound Designer, Rosemary Lombard - Unit Production Manager, Paul Dinello - Screenwriter, Stephen Colbert - Screenwriter, Amy Sedaris - Screenwriter, Siobhan Flaherty - Set Decorator
Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris), a former high school dropout and self-described "junkie whore", is released from prison and returns to her childhood home. She discovers her mother has died, her father (Dan Hedaya) has remarried to the hateful Sara Blank (Deborah Rush) and she has an annoying half-brother Derrick (Joseph Cross). To make matters worse, her father is in a "stress-induced coma." Taking the suggestion of the family doctor (Ian Holm) literally, Jerri decides to pick her life back up where she left it, beginning her high school all over again as a freshman at Flatpoint High (real-life Bayonne High School in Bayonne, NJ).
Jerri joins Chuck Noblet's (Stephen Colbert) science fair team, the Fig Neutrons, along with her new friends Megawatti Sucarnaputri (a spoof on Megawati Sukarnoputri) and Tammi Littlenut (Maria Thayer). Noblet is not pleased to learn that Flatpoint's Principal Onyx Blackman (Greg Hollimon) has hired a ringer for their team (played by Matthew Broderick) to ensure that Flatpoint wins, and so Noblet creates a second team. As she struggles to fit in and make her teammates proud, Jerri discovers that though the faces have changed, the hassles of high school are just the same.
Sedaris admitted in an interview that they never intended on making a film after the series was cancelled, stating, "Paul, Steve, and I were working on our book Wigfield ... We kept coming up with funny Jerri Blank stuff to say, so it would go into a file, and by the end of the book, Paul opened the file and there was all this Blank stuff, and he said, 'Oh, it would be so funny to write a movie.' That's really how it happened."[1]
Characters not returning
Orlando Patoboy looked too old to reprise his series role as Orlando Pinatubo. His character was then replaced by the similar Megawatti Sacarnaputri.
Larc Spies did not return for the role of Derrick Blank because, according to Amy Sedaris, "he looks like a longshoreman now." Several other characters were re-cast because the original actors looked too old to believably play high schoolers. The only original student to return was Maria Thayer as redhead Tammi Littlenut.
Roberto Gari did not reprise the role of Guy Blank, who was instead portrayed by Dan Hedaya. Hedaya portrayed Guy's comatose state differently than Gari; in the television show, Guy is frozen in humorous, almost statuesque state, whereas in the film Guy is simply unconscious.
