Buddy

Grade: B-

I thought of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers while watching Buddy, which had a recurring sequence that portrayed a character’s rough childhood in the style of a 1950’s sitcom. An abusive father, played by Rodney Dangerfield, says some pretty horrific things, all punctuated by bright stage lights, a picturesque set, and a studio audience laugh track. Otherwise, I’ve never seen anything like Buddy.

The title character is the star of a fictional kids television show from 1999. He’s a large, fluffy, orange unicorn who plays and sings with children, as talking mailboxes, backpacks, and other inanimate objects participate too. Every episode ends with a singalong about how they love each other, sung to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” It’s obviously inspired by Barney & Friends, though I also thought of Pee-wee’s Playhouse.

Barney, Pee-wee, and the like are nice places to visit, but they shouldn’t replace living your life and playing with your real friends. You wouldn’t want to live there. And if Buddy detects that you’re not having a good time, you won’t be living in any world. It’s a metaphor I don’t think I’ve seen explored in a movie before.

The movie’s first 30 minutes are essentially a Buddy binge-watch session. It plays like found footage, as we are shown a few consecutive episodes of the show. There’s the opening theme song, the action, and then they sing the “I Love Buddy” song while the credits roll. The first episode has a kid who is respectfully trying to decline participation in a dance party because dancing isn’t his thing. Buddy murders him offscreen, and then the kills continue. They don’t remain offscreen.

After this, we cut to the real world and are introduced to a family of four. The parents are Ben (Topher Grace) and Grace (Christin Milioti from Palm Springs). It takes a little while to find out what any of this has to do with Buddy, but then Grace gets sucked into the show through the TV, becoming Nurse Grace in Buddy’s world. Her reason for becoming involved with the show seems counterproductive to what Buddy, the character, is trying to do. I think we could have had a whole movie with the story playing out in nothing but Buddy episodes, and we’d get the information we needed.

I recently saw Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, whose director, Jane Schoenbrun, deals in 90s nostalgia, so that time period has been on my mind. Casper Kelly successfully takes us right back into a Barney-like world, with the sets, lighting, and canned accompaniment for the songs. I often forgot it was Keegan-Michael Key as the voice of Buddy. He slips into the character well. Patton Oswalt and Michael Shannon also provide voice talent. There are a few laugh-out-loud moments that are funnier here than they would be anywhere else, simply because of the setting and the kids saying these lines.

It doesn’t have exactly the ending you’d expect. The final moment sends the movie out with a joke that will make you think, “Whoa, so what now?” Buddy is messy and doesn’t retain the momentum of that first half hour, but I give it credit for originality. The point of the satire comes through loud and clear. Driving home afterwards, listening to my usual music, I didn’t realize how many song lyrics have “buddy” in them.

Grade: B-