Tina Kakadelis
It’s always interesting to see a longtime actor step behind the camera and take the reins. First Time Female Director is Chelsea Peretti’s debut as a feature film writer and director. It’s about the first woman to direct a play at a small community theater. Sam (Peretti) is asked to step into the role after the previous director (Tim Heidecker) is fired for inappropriate conduct, but she’s entirely out of her depth. Despite the fact that she wrote the play she’s directing, Sam has no creative direction or control over her cast of actors (Kate Berlant, Megan Mullally, Benito Skinner, Megan Stalter, and Megan Stalter).
First Time Female Director is cringe comedy offered by people who have spent their entire careers in this genre. While it’s not necessarily a laugh-a-minute riot, the film does have some weird, wonderful moments. Notably, Amy Poehler’s few scenes as Sam’s therapist are delightfully unhinged, doing far more damage than good for Sam’s emotional growth. When First Time Female Director allows itself to be fully weird with a purpose, the film is at its best. There’s a cameo-filled, celebrity montage of local acting coaches meant to inspire the troupe of performers. Jordan Peele, Adam Scott, Nick Kroll, and Nicole Byer revel in the opportunity to exemplify the worst of Hollywood stereotypes for laughs.
At times, First Time Female Director feels like the Christopher Guest films it’s so clearly inspired by, but the film falters in its presentation. This is a story that’s begging to be a mockumentary or an Arrested Development-style set-up without anyone speaking directly to the camera. The eccentric characters Peretti has created would have thrived in the freedom of playing off the camera and breaking the fourth wall. It would’ve provided another playful element to liven up the dynamic of the film. As it stands, First Time Female Director’s plot and humor are without a guiding star. Even though the film is structured around the opening of the play, the script is more focused on inserting comedy rather than allowing it to grow organically.
As First Time Female Director moves to its conclusion, the focus shifts toward making sure it’s saying something about the state of the arts today. There’s a scene between Sam and Star (Xosha Roquemore), the theater’s front office employee-turned-playwright, about being women in the industry that devolves into Sam believing Star is receiving more accolades for her play because she’s Black. It’s awkwardly written and feels out of place. The same can be said for a few other scenes that seem to critique the way women in the industry are treated as opposed to the way men facing allegations of misconduct are treated. First Time Female Director never fully dives into these conversations, which makes them feel disingenuous, as though they were added after the fact to create depth in a somewhat shallow premise.
Making a comedy is extremely difficult, especially because success is so objectively measured in the genre. For some people, First Time Female Director will be a knee-slapping knockout. For others, it will be an awkward use of so many talented comedic actors. It’s as if the creators were more focused on getting as many recognizable faces as they could without writing parts to make use of those talents. This is perhaps the most restrained performance Berlant has ever turned in. She is so good at making everything weird and uncomfortable in a comedic way, but was never given the chance to do that here. And the film needed to be unabashedly weird. Even Mullaly is uncharacteristically subdued, which is extremely frustrating. There’s so much passion at play here, but it isn’t able to hit a clear homerun.
First Time Female Director’s thesis can be boiled down to how difficult, painful, and disappointing it can be to try to create. You can pour your heart and soul into something and there’s a decent chance it won’t work out the way that you want it to. The important question is what to do next. Do you continue on and use what you’ve learned to better your next project? Or do you end your creative career and find something far more stable, with clear-cut steps and expectations? It’s these questions that are posed and pondered in the last fifteen minutes of the film, and it’s where the audience feels the most depth. Every single person asks themselves these questions as they pursue a creative career. Peretti has likely asked them herself over the course of her own career. If only the final fifteen minutes of the film were just the beginning.
