Essentials: A Fish Called Wanda

Year: 1988
Genre: Comedy
Directed: Charles Crichton
Stars: John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, Maria Aitken, Tom Georgeson, Patricia Hayes, Geoffrey Palmer, Cynthia Cleese, Peter Jonfield, Ken Campbell
Production: MGM

Comedy is notoriously hard to review. At the risk of sounding obtuse, the primary goal of a comedic film usually is to (drum-roll) make you laugh. Yet with humor being an overwhelmingly subjective experience, most reviewers (myself included) often don't bother to tell you whether the film has touched their funny bone. Most reviews thus are spent looking at secondary measurable goals the film has to offer such as its novelty, story elements or ability to latch onto the cultural zeitgeist. If you ever wanted a reason for why critics loved the first Hangover (2009) and hated the sequels despite them being the exact same movie, look no further.

A Fish Called Wanda succeeds on all counts. It's a stunningly original mix of classic British comedy tropes, scurrilous American vulgarity and farcical characterizations. It provides solid gallows humor, intelligent witticisms, crackling dialogue, excellent cast and energetic pacing. It's also incredibly funny. Not just haha-funny; it's gut-bustingly, rolling in the aisles, sitting alone in front of the TV screen and having the neighbors call the police because there's a maniac on the loose, hilarious.

The film begins with a foursome of jewel thieves meeting at an unassuming London flat. Wanda (Curtis) and Otto (Kline) pose as an American brother and sister team while Georges (Tom) and the regularly stuttering Ken (Palin) are natives who are suspicious of their partners (especially Otto). The jewelry heist is largely a success with only one eye-witness placing Georges at the scene. Otto and Wanda promptly double cross their comrades and calls in a tip to further incriminate Georges. They try to make off with the loot but find the volt where the diamonds were held empty. Seeing no alternative, Wanda continues to court Georges while getting close to his barrister Archie (Cleese), believing that the first person he'll tell is his legal defense team.

The film then tangles itself into an intricate web of deceit, confusions, happenstances and comedic set-pieces that channel the best of the Ealing Studio comedies only with conspicuously modern sensibilities. That's not mere coincidence either, director Charles Crichton directed The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) arguably the studio's most revered accomplishment. Where most modern comedies ensnare themselves in a snarl of contrivance and a fast processional of deus ex machina moments, A Fish Called Wanda pilots through the such pratfalls with glorious confidence. All the who's who, what's where's and what-not's all disseminate from the characters whose broadness is tempered with specific peculiarities.The characters themselves, while broadly drawn are so well composited and made whole by the actors that you'd swear the ghost of Joseph Kesselring was looking down and smiling on the production.

John Cleese's Archie oozes upper crust pomposity and naive gullibility. He's a rube but he's a lovable rube who at times feels like a deadringer to Graham Chapman's various straight-man roles on Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-1974). Fellow Python alum Michael Palin plays a different kind of rube; of the Elmer Fudd variety. His honesty and ineptitude are no match for the intricacies of the plot, let alone Otto's daffiness. There's a reoccurring joke where Otto, in an attempt to keep Ken off his tracks, fakes a homosexual attraction. Sure it's a little dated but within the film's context the joke lands largely due to Palin's deer-in-the-headlights panic. I suppose the added benefit of melding British and American sensibilities ensures that the film is not just funny but funny on multiple wavelengths.

Out of all the pitch-perfect characters that populate this film, Kevin Kline's Otto was perfectly designed to steal the show. Seeing himself as one smart cookie, the irony of Otto is not only his puffed up egoism but his complete inability to see Wanda's betrayal. He's like Nick Bottom from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' with a dollop of Daffy Duck added in for good measure.

Then there's the rapturous Jamie Lee Curtis who uses her feminine wiles to delirious heights against the men. Her resourcefulness and gamesmanship has a Katharine Hepburn-like quality which is only betrayed by her character's orgasmic reaction to the Italian language. Part of the fun of her character however is her ability to bounce off Kevin Kline's childish impetuousness. In one masterful scene of comedic debrief, Wanda pops Otto's quasi-intellectual bubble by saying "Let me correct you on a couple of things. Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not 'Every man for himself.' The London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up."

Whatever you do, never call Kevin Kline stupid.

I could go on and on about A Fish Called Wanda's effortless charm and underappreciated timelessness. Layered with a plethora of jokes, freakishly good acting and unique sensibilities on top of a clever caper, I simply cannot recommend this film enough. I emphatically implore all to see A Fish Called Wanda to see farce done right.

Final Grade: A