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Greener Grass (2019)

‘Greener Grass’ (2019) a lauded absurdist nightmare

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by

MJ-A
in

I normally don’t research a film before watching it. But I did, and I found an amazing number of reviews praising the 2019 feature film Greener Grass as gloriously twisted, absurdist, surreal, demented, satirical, hilariously deadpan, weird, hysterical and a surprise hit at Sundance.

So I was quite surprised how unpleasant this film is. It turns out you have to traverse 20 pages of search results to get to the negative reviews, which means no one will ever read this one. I will proceed anyway.

The Story

The story is about soccer moms who lead perfect lives in a idyllic surburban community where everyone travels by golf cart. It’s so perfect, every adult has braces on their teeth. And if 4 golf carts meet at an intersection, it’s impossible to move because every driver wants to be gracious and let the others go first.

The film begins with soccer mom Jill Davies (Jocelyn DeBoer) taking generosity a step too far. When soccer mom Lisa Wetbottom (Dawn Luebbe) compliments Jill on her new baby girl, Jill insists on giving her the child.

To cut to the chase, the film is Jill’s nightmare as she gradually ceeds her husband, her son-turned-into-a-dog, her house, her pool, and her color coordination to Lisa. Jill descends from perfect pink to complete dishevelment but never really understands why, as Lisa points out to her, her predicament is her own fault.

The Weirdness

There are many absurd scenes and characters that I just could not find funny:

  • The 2 married couples make out and exchange spit at a BBQ
  • Jill wears red panties around her neck as a scarf
  • Jill’s husband Nick (Beck Bennett) is obsessed with drinking his ultra-filtered swimming pool water
  • Each family has a 7 year old boy who curses and acts out
  • Throughout the film, an ominous presence lurks near Jill and also tries to take over her life. This character is known as the bagger murderer, Little Helen Frownfelter (Dot-Marie Jones), a trans-woman who accidentally killed the yoga teacher.
  • I watched this on DVD, and even the trailers were for a couple of horrific R-rated movies

The Soccer

The only scenes in the film that brought me relief were the 7 year olds playing soccer.

In Conclusion

I had originally seen the 2015 short film that was turned into this feature film. Based on that, I would not have gone out of my way to watch the 2019 version, but the DVD showed up at my library.

First-time Writer-Director-Stars Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe gave many interviews as a pretty rare women director duo. They initially sold the short to be developed into a series, but when that project sat for too long, they decided to make a feature film that they would direct themselves. They found Peachtree City in Georgia, with its built-in golf cart transit system as a location for their film.

Much like the 2015 Italian film L’arbitro, the Greener Grass feature film expanded on the original short story, filling in more details and scenes.

For a much better satirical soccer mom film, where absurdism is carried out to the nth degree, watch Bad Parents instead. That film made me laugh instead of flinch.

3 Soccer Movie Mom Rating = 3

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