Critic Reviews

While the kids are pretty fantastic overall, it’s the collaboration between Brill and Bonilla that takes Heller’s screenplay to another level.

It’ll probably drive some people crazy, but I enjoyed the hell out of it.

That this is Bonilla’s feature directorial debut makes one only hope she keeps making comedies like this, as every escalation, cutaway, and lighting cue is perfectly executed. Doug may be a terrible director, but she proves to be a great one.

Like its eminently problematic anti-hero, The Musical says its piece with conviction to spare, and a welcome streak of cat-among-the-pigeons danger rarely found in contemporary American comedy.

Bonilla has directing chops, but she needs to refine them. She does show real potential and is a director to watch as her career proceeds.

Even if The Musical isn’t always a hit, it’s worth it when the film does find its high notes.

The result is a dated mishmash that makes a credible but halfhearted bid for relevance by triple-underlining the common theme of the much better movies that inspired it: White male bitterness is the most blithely destructive force on Earth.

Though The Musical may lack a feeling of modernity, it could make up for that elsewhere: with tart humor, with unexpected plot developments, with compelling performances. But, alas, Bonilla and her actors can’t do much to leaven the leaden script they’ve been handed.