Pitch Perfect 2
“Pitch Perfect” was one of the most pleasant surprises of the 2012 movie lineup, a comedy headlined by women that found ways to be a bit vulgar but also accessible without JUST being about would the characters hook up with significant others. It was about how women bond with other women, and how difficult that could be for someone who is a bit of an outsider. It also has some really great music in it by the various a capella groups in the film, starting with the underdog Barden Bellas. At the start of “Pitch Perfect 2,” the Bellas are back, and on top of the collegiate a capella world, but after a wardrobe malfunction while performing for the president (who makes a re-purposed footage cameo), they have to build themselves back up. The formula in Kay Cannon’s screenplay is basically the same as the first, but hey, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it, right?
At the center of the film, once again, is Anna Kendrick as Beca Mitchell, who was an outsider to the Bellas in the first film, someone who wanted to produce music and do her own thing, but is now the leader of the group alongside Chloe (Brittney Snow), who is still on the verge of graduating, but is afraid to do so. Beca is a bit of an outsider still, as she goes into her senior year focusing less on the Bellas and more on what she wants to do after college by taking an internship at a recording studio. She’s relegated to getting coffee and snacks rather than strutting her stuff, but she gets an unexpected chance to impress when Snoop Dogg/Lion (in a funny cameo), and she does, but it also comes with anxiety– she’s great with mash-ups and reconfiguring other people’s work, but does she have something personal to say herself? That’s an interesting dilemma for a creative person to have, and it always makes for rich storytelling, whether you’re talking about a silly comedy like “Pitch Perfect 2” or “Bring It On” (which also had the same dilemma at it’s center, which I’ll be discussing in a couple of months time in July) or a serious drama like “Amadeus.” Yes, I just likened comedies about college a capella singing and high school cheerleading to an Oscar-winning adaptation of a play– suck it up, buttercup. One of the things Kendrick, Cannon and director Elizabeth Banks (who makes a solid feature directorial debut) do so well in this film is play to the awkward, self-deprecating humor Kendrick displays in interviews and on Twitter and bringing that to Becca as she faces the future while gradually breaking with the past. It’s an inspired choice that brings out the best in the actress, especially when she’s faced with the seeming perfection of one of the leaders of a German a capella group who is the Bellas’s biggest rivals for the upcoming world championships.
Beca may be the main character, but this is ultimately an ensemble effort– the Bellas are the main story. This film is a lot about not just the future of the Bellas, personified by Emily Junk, a freshman whose mother (played by Katey Segal, whose work on “Sons of Anarchy” has forever altered my expectations of seeing her on-screen) was a Bella, as it is about the futures of the characters we’ve followed since the first film. Emily is played by Hailee Steinfeld, who finally has the great follow-up performance to her work in “True Grit” we’ve been expecting for years now, and like Beca, she has her own voice as a musician. She’s a songwriter, and while original songs are generally looked down on by people in the a capella world, they may provide the key to the future of the Bellas, much like Beca’s penchant for mash-ups and pulling from different genres was in the first film. The scenes of the Bellas off-stage follow a lot of the same trajectory they did in the first film, but they offer some great moments for Snow’s Chloe, Anna Camp’s Aubrey (who returns to lead the team through a rough team-building retreat) and Chrissie Fit’s Flo (the Bellas’s token hispanic character, who’s role is to put the “first world problems” of her fellow Bellas in perspective, in hilarious fashion). And for fans of Rebel Wilson’s Fat Amy, don’t worry, she’s back, although her best moments typically involve the relationship she is dealing with with Adam DeVine’s Bumper, who is back as that sad graduate who just can’t get away from his glory days.
In the end, though, it’s the musical moments people want to see, and “Pitch Perfect 2” does not disappoint. Part of what makes this such an impression first film for Banks (who returns to her announcer’s role as Gail, and continues to have great back-and-forth with John Michael Higgins’s misogynist co-announcer) is how she handles the musical scenes, and stages and choreographs them to make us really feel an evolution from the bottom to the peak of their powers for the Bellas. The best examples of these are when the Bellas, rattled by the German team that is their rivals, tries to emulate them with an edgy performance that just doesn’t feel right, and their world championship performance. No, they haven’t forgotten “Cups” from the first film (and the scene where the Bellas sing that around the campfire is a great one), but it’s the original song of Emily’s, “Flashlight,” that is this film’s breakout hit. (And hopefully, a strong possibility for next year’s Original Song Oscar.) That final performance, where past and present come together for the Bellas, brought a few tears to my eyes. Yes, the film is very predictable, and of course the Bellas are going to succeed (have to leave room for a third film), but the sign of a good film, and great entertainment, is it’s ability to grab you anyway, and “Pitch Perfect 2” does just that. With the right backbone of a story, I’ll happily watch a third go at this franchise.
