‘Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar’ Deserves a Second Chance

Three years ago, deep in the bleak pandemic winter, we were blessed with a strange, movie-shaped gift. Starring and written by two of our most talented comedians, it was at once satirical, sincere, good-hearted and neon-colored. It took place mostly on a Florida beach. There were some dance numbers, a remix of “My Heart Will Go On,” a bunch of colorful sugar-bomb cocktails and an obsessive attention to culottes. The jokes came fast and furiously. A crab talked in a voice that sounded like Morgan Freeman. It was, in a word, perfect.

I’m writing, of course, of “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar,” one of the more criminally underrated films in recent years. That fate was mostly inevitable; theaters weren’t open in many markets in February 2021, and matters like “time” and “release schedules” were nebulous, mushy concepts. The fact that “Barb and Star” was written by its leads, Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, the same pair of friends who wrote the paradigm-shifting “Bridesmaids” 10 years earlier, somehow didn’t propel it into the spotlight. (We were all too busy obsessing over “WandaVision.”)

But I’ve found myself thinking about “Barb and Star” (available to buy or rent on most major platforms) in the years since, in part because of last year’s megahit “Barbie.” That movie’s greatest pleasure was its tone: zany, bright, heightened, self-aware, a little meta and very sweet. It had winking jokes and magical realism and a heartfelt message, and that made it feel fresh and unusual which, indeed, it was.

Crank up the “Barbie” tone by a factor of five, toss in a bag of glitter and a blue cocktail in a huge fishbowl, add just a tiny touch of raunch, and you get “Barb and Star.” The tale concerns the titular middle-aged Midwesterners, played by Mumolo and Wiig, best friends who live in Soft Rock, Neb., and work at Jennifer Convertibles — the couch store. Barb is a widow, and Star (short for “Starbara”) is divorced. They have identical poofy haircuts and they sleep in twin beds; they belong to a Talking Club run by an imperious woman (Vanessa Bayer) and have never really left their hometown.

But after an unfortunate layoff at Jennifer Convertibles, Barb and Star are inspired to do something unexpected to get their shimmer back. A chance encounter with a tanned acquaintance leads in one direction: a week in Vista Del Mar, Fla. What they don’t know is that Edgar (Jamie Dornan, transcendent) will be there too, at the behest of a villainess named Sharon Gordon Fisherman, also played by Wiig. He worships her; she barely tolerates him, but has promised that if they can pull off her evil plot, they can be an “official couple.” Which is all he wants in all the world.