Wednesday 9 January 2013

Pitch Perfect


I was a little unsure about Pitch Perfect upon seeing the initial trailer. Although it looked funny I'm not a fan of musicals or musical type films with lots of singing. And it also looked kinda cheesy. Eventually though I caved and decided to give Pitch Perfect a chance.

The film tells the story of Beca (Anna Kendrick), a girl who dreams of going to LA and being a music producer but who has made a deal with her father to spend one year in college. If at the end of that year she still wants nothing more than to produce the kind of music she loves, then he'll pay for her to go to LA himself. But the catch is that she has to make an effort in college, she has to make friends. And in order to do this Beca reluctantly joins the Barden Bella's, an a cappella, all girl singing group. Their aim is to reach the final of a singing competition that they so spectacularly failed at the year before when one of the primary members of the Bella's lost her lunch all over the front row of spectators. Will Beca be able to turn their luck around?

So my reservations were that this was a singing film that looked kinda cheesy. Yes there is singing, but it's surprisingly good singing that gets your foot tapping in time with the music. And yes, the film is cheesy, but this is one of it's charms, it's intentionally cheesy in parts. It's also a charming and likable film, much like it's characters.

My only criticism would be the amount of vomit in the film. As I mentioned in the summary, the opening scene features the Bella's previous performance and due to some horrendous stage fright one of the girls projectile vomits all over the audience. I get it, it's supposed to be gross out funny. The thing is that this film really didn't need a gross out scene to work. Let alone does it need TWO of them! As someone who has a hard time seeing other people throw up I found the opening scene bad enough, but when there was a second, even more graphic vomiting scene later on in the movie I'd had about as much as I could stomach. Literally. It was unnecessary and had gone way beyond the point of funny.

This aside I genuinely liked the film. I thought it had plenty of sass, determination and heart. It was a little predictable but what films aren't these days? If you're not so fragile when it comes to 'up chuck' then I'd definitely recommend Pitch Perfect. 7 out of 10.


Viewing Date - 30th December 2012
UK Release Date - 21st December 2012

Cast Overview:
Anna Kendrick ~ Beca
Skylar Astin ~ Jesse
Ben Platt ~ Benji
Brittany Snow ~ Chloe
Anna Kamp ~ Aubrey
Rebel Wilson ~ Fat Amy
Alexis Knapp ~ Stacie
Ester Dean ~ Cynthia Rose

Director ~ Jason Moore
Writer(s) ~ Kay Cannon (Screenplay) and Mickey Rapkin (Book)

1 comment:

  1. We just watched watched WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING tonight with two of this cast in it! :-)

    ReplyDelete