“Sometimes you gotta step outta your box a little. Then you’ll know what life is really about.” This is the narration that comes at the end of Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, a highly unlikely (just in terms of existing at all) movie/occasional musical about two “middle-aged” (a word that gets derogatorily bandied quite a bit) women named, of course, Barb and Star. And it’s a little “platitude” that just barely made the cutoff for “passability” before Miss Rona came ‘round to show us that shut-ins and misanthropes have had it right all along.
Before that moment, when Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar was still slated to come out in theaters in July of 2020, sure, we could buy into a “chestnut” such as this. About how “stepping out of our comfort zone” is all we really need to renew a lust for life. But, of course, the one comfort zone no one ever really wants to step out of—that would actually make a difference in quality of life—is capitalism. Indeed, the entire crux of Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar centers on the capitalistic belief that going on a middle-class vacation to escape one’s daily humdrum existence is the solution to the problem. But no, the problem itself will never be addressed: capitalism and all trappings thereof are part of a vicious cycle that creates false ideals. Including one of beauty. This is where our villain, Sharon Gordon Fisherman (also played by Kristen Wiig), comes in.
With her “offensively” pale skin (something like albino, but the movie instead deems the condition “pigmentatia-degenera-hysterica-whiteskinika”), Sharon is ostracized early on by the other children. Told to stay out of the sunlight, she develops an allergy to it that further shuns her from the “average” kids. “Pale girl,” “white devil” and “asshole” are just some of the nicknames she earns after moving to Vista Del Mar. But worse than that (or even her only friend being eaten by an alligator) is the trauma of landing naked—her blindingly white skin exposed in its entirety to all—in the pool of a Disney cruise ship after a cruel prank the proverbial mean girls pull at the annual Seafood Jam. Slapping her with a fake crown that gets her shoved into the cannon they’ve turned to full blast, Sharon is forever vengeful against the town itself—which she feels represents the injustice wrought upon her. Of course, the more logical form of revenge would be fucking with the girls who actually got her placed in the cannon and launched nude (after the force of the wind ripped her clothes off) into a public pool. But then we wouldn’t have a “nefarious” villain on our hands in the style of someone out of Austin Powers, now would we? And without an indefatigable antagonist (cartoonish to the point of being Trump-esque), there would be no “daffy” women to unwittingly foil her entire plot basically just by being there with their annoying, motor-mouthing personalities.
Written by and starring Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo (reteaming after writing 2011’s Bridesmaids together), the movie, tellingly produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s Gary Sanchez Productions, has that same quality of melodrama and absurdity as 2014’s The Spoils of Babylon (also starring Wiig and produced by the Ferrell/McKay pocketbook). But beyond the satirical slant about middle-aged women and their boringness, it’s about two friends seeking to “find their shimmer” again (in many ways, it riffs on Thelma and Louise–complete with a jumping off a cliff together scene). This, of course, is white people talk for “getting their groove back,” which is why Sharon balks at one point that they’re nothing more than “a couple of pathetic Stellas trying to get their groove back.” This said to her henchman/would-be lover, Edgar Paget a.k.a. Mr. Christian Grey himself (Jamie Dornan).
Despite Sharon’s coldness and patent lack of interest in Edgar, he still dreams of being an “official couple” when all this is over. “This” being Sharon’s diabolical, mosquito-driven plan to take down Vista Del Mar. And yes, it smacks of how Florida has already released genetically modified mosquitos into their environment as a supposed means to kill off large swaths of the biting population (meaning, the females—how surprising). “One sting will kill a large animal within minutes,” the scientist assures, not aware that Sharon is using him to create what she needs and then ax him like everyone else standing in her way. Dr. Bradley catches on too late as he starts sputtering, “There was a problem with herds of rabid animals in South Africa, you said?” The only reason he would agree to manufacture these mosquitos in the first place. And maybe Sharon would be accurate in her assumption that nothing else could stand in her way after “eliminating” the scientist were it not for Barb and Star getting summarily fired from their job at the last Jennifer Convertibles… in Soft Rock, Nebraska. But it’s not even that they’ve been fired (though they probably should have been long ago based on their interactions with customers), it’s that the store is finally closing down.
This, combined with getting kicked out of “talking club” for lying, leads Star to come to the conclusion that the universe is trying to tell them something. Barb is much less receptive to that idea, fearful of all the things that could go wrong if they left their Nebraskan bubble. But Star tells her they’ve lost their shimmer, they’re fading away—and that all of their stories are from the past, indicating nothing memorable has happened to them in quite some time. This an unwitting nod to most people’s lives of drudgery since the pandemic began.
With their short hair and culottes (a running gag throughout the movie), Barb and Star are quintessential American women (Barb’s husband died in a Black Friday trampling, for example) “of a certain age.” And Vista Del Mar caters to “their set.” Offering just enough fun for adults to let themselves believe they’re going buckwild (in the style of the old people in Some Kind of Heaven) without doing too much out of their aforementioned comfort zone. Yet Barb and Star didn’t bargain on Edgar sitting next to them at the bar as he waits for the day of the Seafood Jam to arrive so he can plant the mosquito-beckoning device that will attract them to the town for their mass kill. Sharing a little imbibed drink on the menu—the Buried Treasure, which, if you get to the bottom, has a…buried treasure—together, the three get real fast and loose. Particularly when they come to find the buried treasure at the bottom is molly.
This sets in motion a series of events that will forever change all of their lives. But again, what would really change them is the eradication of patently defective systems that make people seek satisfaction through things that require disposable income earned from pretending to work all day. Alas, don’t bother telling that “theory” to anyone in Barb and Star’s age bracket.
