The collaboration of seven friends who met among the sets of Saturday Night Live does not end in one of those memorable comedies that are revisited. And there is only one reason: it doesn't laugh much.
Amy Poehler is Abby, a less relaxed version if Leslie Knope wants her great role in Parks and Recreation. I imagine it must be so in real life and that is why it comes out so natural. Abby is organizing the 50th birthday (“the big five, oh”) of one of her best friends, the focused psychologist Rebecca, played by the great Rachel Dratch who finally acts as a normal person. It's a shame because he has a genetically created face to make crazy characters that make you laugh with a gesture, like his huge Debbie Downer (the sketch of SNL where they go to Disneyland is the funniest thing they will see in their life). The group of friends is completed with Catherine, Naomi, Val and Jenny. Namely: Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph, Paula Pell and Emily Spivey. All are part of SNL, the last two as screenwriters. As friends in the real world, this detail poured a degree of closeness to very pleasant interactions (and supposedly based on real-life facts) but that strangely conjured up against humor.
Abby decides - and it is part of a recurring comedy step in the film - that the group will vacation for a few days at a rented house whose owner is an apparently sour lady. The role falls in the missing friend of the real group, the always great Tina Fey, who tries to get juice from a character who might have better Bill Murray shoes. The house is in the middle of the "Country of Wine", as the Americans call it to its most prolific area of vineyards. His "Mendoza" is the Napa Valley, an idyllic and very quiet and relaxed place in California where things obviously start to twist when some secrets that will disturb the stay between friends come to light. All between glasses of wine, inconsequential talks about life, laughter, outings and some romantic situation taken surprisingly in an adult and enjoyable way, which leads me to think that if instead of having played a full to make a comedy (where surely they feel more comfortable), they would have sought a medium tone of dramedy with the avatars of the crisis of reaching a certain age, personal problems (some serious) and real discussions, we could find not only a better film, but maybe even a great movie.
It is not because Wine Country is like one of Adam Sandler but with less jokes and farting jokes (there are both to target all sectors). It is the feminine, democratic and netflixer version of that chotada that Adam Sandler made with his own SNL friends called "Like Children" or something like that. Without a doubt, it is better in every aspect. But it is not so much better. We want it to be superior because from the beginning we like Amy Poehler much more sympathetically than Sandler, who went from filming Punch Drunk Love to that unpresentable film where she plays her sister, who filmed for reasons that we can only attribute to the economic crisis of 2008 and the repair of some castle.
On an aesthetic level, Wine Country does a decent job of showing us the Napa Valley in all its glory, although it is noted that there was the oddly used green screen and almost all outdoor sequences are too bright. Other criticisms speak of perhaps doing so to soften the faces of actresses a bit, which would be a message quite contrary to what the film seeks to spread. Especially since the address is from Poehler herself who debuts behind the cameras.
Wine Country lasts about 100 minutes and has some hilarious moments, but since they did not want to make a comic drama but a comedy made and right, the final product ends up failing as Adam Sandler's films fail. The difference is going to end up being that Sandler sees them many more people and they don't pretend to be something they aren't. Although he disguises himself as his sister.