• Quiz Lady

7/24/25 (Thurs)

A pleasant piece of made-for-TV fluff. Anne is a lonely 30-something schlump who is ignored at work and lives alone with her dog, where her only big pleasure is watching the weekly television quiz show. She is reunited with her unhinged sister Jenny after many years when the care facility calls and says her mother is lost – which, it turns out, means that they simply can’t find her. They eventually discover that she has absconded to Macau with a new lover – leaving a significant debt behind that the girls have now inherited. A gangster kidnaps Anne’s beloved pooch and threatens to kill it if she doesn’t come up with the money.

Desperate, the ever-conniving Jenny enters her sister into an audition for the quiz show. To Anne’s horror, she is accepted. She passes the audition with the help of some questionable drugs provided by Jenny, but is petrified when she has to appear on the show itself, facing off with a record-setting contestant who has never lost. The farce winds up predictably enough with renewed happy ties between the sisters, but it offers some creative touches getting there.

The show rests on the strong chemistry between its stars. Awkwafina (The Farewell) is the dour quiz girl who’s resigned to being a mere extra in life, played with a perpetual look of resignation and a slumping gait. On the other end of the spectrum is an irrepressible Sandra Oh, playing against type as the wild, crazy and fearless Jenny. While it wouldn’t be politic to note the age gap, they play against each other perfectly and are clearing having a ball. The best scenes were the over-drugged Anne’s psychedelic audition and the final charade game that brings the sisters together without getting too sloppy about it, but the movie is never dull when either is on screen. The other standout was Holland Taylor as Anne’s grumpy neighbor. Will Ferrell (who helped produce the film) is unusually calm as the game show host, Jason Schwartzman is appropriately slimy as the egotistical show contestant, and Pee-Wee Herman, in one of his final appearances before his death, has a nice turn as Alan Cumming (it’s complicated).

This is no great shakes as a movie but offers some good mindless laughs throughout. And nothing wrong with that.