Studio: BET Films
Director: Coke Daniels
Writer: Coke Daniels
Producer: Coke Daniels, Craig Chapman, Sevier Crespo, Mary Aloe, Gillian Hormel, Autumn Bailey-Ford, Taryn Manning, Cory Hardrict, Tirrell D. Whittley
Stars: Taryn Manning, Cory Hardrict, Jasmine Burke, Roger Dorman, Brandon Sklenar, Gregory Alan Williams
Review Score:
Summary:
A White woman’s passive-aggressive racism escalates into dangerous behavior after a Black couple moves in next door.
Review:
Before watching “Karen,” I had it in my head that this would end up being a pretty glib review. I could practically picture a snicker sitting on my face throughout the entirety of writing.
It started with a quick peek at user reviews on IMDb, where “Karen” currently has just a 2.7 rating from 600+ votes. Comments, many of which were written before the film’s BET airing and don’t appear to come from folks likely to pay $4.99 to rent “woke propaganda” early on Amazon, ranged from hyperbolic declarations like “worst movie of all time” to predictable accusations of “leftist liberal agendas” determined to demonize white people.
Social media reactions weren’t any kinder. After the film’s teaser trailer dropped, CNN, Newsweek, and USA Today all posted articles culled from angry Twitter accounts calling “Karen” a copycat “Get Out” cash-in. They likened the “unbelievably cringe” movie to an SNL skit that didn’t understand the nuance of Jordan Peele’s subtext or context and instead took a half-assed approach to a regurgitated “racism is bad” theme.
At the time, it seemed to me that a crash course might be in order regarding the difference between trash and trashy. Played by Taryn Manning, no stranger to tabloid tawdriness considering she portrayed a sex-obsessed Faye Resnick in the abysmal “The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson” (review here), this titular Karen was clearly a caricature, what with her basic b*tch bob cut and necklace of pearls for clutching. In case her physical depiction was somehow too subtle, Karen also decorates her bathroom with a Confederate flag soap dispenser, speaks to a manager about noisy restaurant patrons, plays passive-aggressive when wagging her finger over broken HOA rules, and accurately emulates that video of the woman who similarly played make-believe victim when confronted by a Central Park bird-watcher. And to think all of this occurs before an abusive police officer pours additional threats into the two-minute trailer.
No one gives Lifetime legitimate grief over their MOWs made with boxed-wine soccer moms in mind. “Karen” might be taking on touchier topics, but it evidently drove down that same lane of basic cable melodrama intentionally engineered to be entertainingly tacky. Anyone who took “Karen” as an earnest attempt at crafting a thought-provoking thriller had merely been blinded by the knee-jerk response of an internet outrage alarm. Just because it’s trashy doesn’t mean it’s also trash, right?
It turns out “Karen” is the sensationalized soap opera on steroids I just described, which is the sort of silliness the trailer advertises whether it wants to or not. The problem though, is I’m not completely convinced that’s the movie that writer/director Coke Daniels and 20+ producers set out to make. And if they expected audiences to take “Karen” as serious social commentary, then they dug some hilariously daffy holes to ensure no reasonable viewer could ever assign “Karen” any credibility.
New neighbors Malik and Imani aren’t as outrageous as Karen. How could they be? They do get a cursorily cliché moment of movie endearment however. After moving next door to Karen in her affluent suburban community, the happy couple giggles, rocks back and forth in an embrace, and gawks at their new home like they’re seeing it for the first time.
In the first of a few bafflingly bizarre creative decisions, Malik and Imani aren’t exactly the perfect pairing they present on the outside. For one thing, Malik has a habit of sneaking off to the driveway to smoke pot. He also has a handgun his wife didn’t know he brought into their house, further suggesting Malik keeps secrets he thinks Imani doesn’t need to know about.
Maybe that’s why it’s easy for Imani to believe Malik might have a fling with Karen, even if it’s impossible for us to suspect the same thing. One of the movie’s barely-bloomed subplots involves Karen sexualizing Malik, and Imani finding out about the other woman’s fantasy. Karen puts the moves on Malik, in an unintentionally comical sequence where he has to pour antifreeze fluid into her car for whatever reason, although this scene exists more to motivate how Malik finds out about the surveillance suite hidden in Karen’s home.
The notion of Malik and Karen having an affair is an improbable scenario for too many reasons than there is space to get into. Its mere existence as background noise speaks to the movie’s bigger issue of creating problematic protagonists who fight with each other about as much as they fight with Karen. Conflict is of course essential in storytelling. But it shouldn’t exist between heroes who need a united front against a greater threat instead of playing distracting blame games about Malik’s casual drug use making him an easy target for the police.
“Karen” makes mistakes like this all over the place. Rather than being an ordinary entitled a-hole, Karen gets let off the hook a little thanks to a backstory bit explaining her racist rage as the byproduct of a Black vigilante murdering her police officer husband. Say what now? As bad or even worse is the literal “white savior” who arrives at the end to rescue Imani since she apparently can’t do it herself. I wonder if one of the 20+ producers who had a hand in development took a look at the script and said, “Well, at least one of the white men has to be a good guy and Karen can’t be entirely awful either.”
I don’t wonder too much because, unlike the topics it awkwardly attempts to tackle, “Karen” doesn’t have the substance to be worthy of deep dissection. “Karen” is the movie I thought it would be: a live-action comic book whose kitchen sink inclusion of phrases ranging from “comply” and “All Lives Matter” to “you people” and “go back to Africa” makes for over-the-top exploitation ripe for howling at your TV with eye-rolling hilarity. I’m awarding a “what does it even matter anyway?” 50/100 review score because I’m still not sure what to make of the movie. I don’t know if the people who made it would have any definitive answers either.
Review Score: 50
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