For obvious reasons, Bad Words has endured its share of Bad Santa comparisons during its festival roll-out. In actual fact though, Jason Bateman’s directorial début has more in common with HBO’s debauched Eastbound & Down. Through liberal use of slow motion, this dark comedy brings a sense of epic grandeur to the boorish behaviour on display, lending its antihero’s indignant raising of a middle finger the same aesthetic allure as an action star’s acrobatic gunplay.
Rather than a burned out baseball star, the deadbeat paraded around for our amusement here is Guy Trilby (Bateman). Having discovered a loophole to exploit in the Golden Quill Spelling Bee’s rulebook, the misanthropic proofreader engages in televised vocabularic combat with ‘tweens. Despite a genius-level IQ and photographic memory (he doesn’t flinch when confronted with “floccinaucinihilipilification”), he insists on fighting dirty, messing with his young rivals’ impressionable heads.
For many of us who’ve experienced the disappointment of adulthood, there’s undeniably a perverse cathartic thrill in watching these promising young overachievers being taken down a peg. Unfortunately, the reasonable explanation for Guy’s inexcusable behaviour — uncovered by the sexually depraved reporter (Kathryn Hahn) charting his path to undignified glory — is every bit as underwhelming as you might fear.
Thankfully, before that anticlimactic reveal, there’s much to guiltily admire here. Bateman goes about his business with a compelling grim determination. And as he drags everyone down to his level, we discover that there’s considerable comedy gold to be found in the gutter he haunts.
