A Highlight of 2018: “Support the Girls”

If I post only one more review this year, I want it to be one that draws readers’ attention to one of the highlights of my movie-going year. Andrew Bujalski’s new feature film, Support the Girls, may, at first glance, seem an unlikely highlight, because the style is so understated and muted, but the movie in fact packs powerful emotion and such brilliant, original insights to its story that I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days after each of the couple of times that I saw it.

Support the Girls all takes place in one day, following the activities of Lisa (Regina Hall), the manager of a Hooters-like sports bar called Double Whammies, serving, in her words, “boobs, brews, and big screens”. Her primary concern is the wellbeing of her staff, the tightly-clothed waitresses of Double Whammies, and she doesn’t hesitate to put a leering or loud-mouthed customer in his place when one of her girls is disrespected.


Following the point of view of someone who spends most of her day considering the state of being of working-class women, specifically selected as objects of desire to sell products and attract revenue, Bujalski’s movie refreshingly foregrounds characters that are usually background figures in movies. It adopts many of the aspects of a realist drama — which gives rise to the understated style I mentioned — that nevertheless highlights fine details of emotion and points to illustrate the filmmaker’s ideas. Most of the plot involves a tumbling accumulation of practical and emotional problems that Lisa has to face and fix, both in the bar and in her own personal life, which continually threatens to intrude on her work time. Bujalski’s documentary-like style of filming and editing conveys a push and pull of tensions and difficulties that keep his movie flowing from each point to the next.

What is widely noted and appreciated about the film — something that I love about it as much as anyone else — is the wonderful screen performance that Bujalski has elicited from Regina Hall, who won the New York Film Critics Circle award for best actress for this movie. Widely known for her part in the Scary Movie series, Hall displays a surprising authenticity and nuance here. Bujalski gives her character, Lisa, moments in between the moments: chances to catch her breath, wipe her brow, to relax in the sunlight, to reflect, between scenes of conversation, of crisis-management, and of emotional reckoning. And in these moments, Hall doesn’t deliver one feeling at a time, as if on cue, but unfolds a complex range of emotions, reactions, and thoughts. She fills her character not with characteristics but with being. Hall’s performance has a quality in common with the best performances of another remarkable actor best known for mediocre comedies: Jennifer Aniston. Hall gives the impression of deep hidden reserves of emotion. When she smiles, she seems on the verge of tears, and when she’s dealing pragmatically with the practical problems at hand, there’s the sense of great waves of feeling being held back.

I haven’t seen any of Bujalski’s other work, but here he seems concerned with the personal and emotional aspects of women working in the entertainment industry, rather than any political issues. There is a matter of racial discrimination that shows up, bluntly and unsurprisingly. It isn’t resolved at all, and Bujalski is perhaps acknowledging that even a specific minor issue such as this one can’t be dealt with in only a day, even by the world’s best manager. Bujalski appears particularly interested in how the convergence of different personalities and attitudes affects the workplace, and how the resulting work environment in turn affects the relationships between those personalities. It’s an apt subject for an independent filmmaker, because they have to manage finances, human resources, technical matters, and operations, in addition to putting on a show and creating imaginative works. Maybe Support the Girls, with its images of sisterly affection and formidable can-do attitudes, is also Bujalski’s covert advocacy for including more women in the world of show business. After all, in his movie as in real life, the men keep trying the same things over and over again and keeping fucking it up, and the women are left trying to put together the pieces.