R-rated Comedy with Female Lead

Rating: 7/10 (19 August 2013)

Cameron Diaz plays a teacher who is trying to save up for breast enlargement surgery because she thinks it will get her a rich husband. It was like a cross between Danny McBride in the first season of Eastbound and Down and Charlize Theron in Young Adult. Like both of those characters, Cameron's character remains mostly unrepentant throughout. Most of the humor comes from her couldn't-give-a-care attitude (which reminded me of another film creation, Billy Bob's Bad Santa) and raunchy language. The other part of the equation is the conflict with the bubbly teacher across the hall, Amy Squirrel. You don't forget a character like her, and Lucy Punch was cute while building towards increasingly unhinged behavior. Justin Timberlake was over the top as a gee-whiz never-could-exist-in-the-real-world idealist, and Jason Segal gets to be a regular guy. Out of the other supporting roles, I liked John Michael Higgins as the principal that also could never ever exist anywhere ever. I was glad they didn't go too far with making the lead character have some kind of change of heart or show some huge emotional growth, because that didn't fit the tone of this movie at all. What little changes she did show were even more than I wanted to see, but I stayed entertained right up until the final schmaltzy letdown. So it was, overall, a worthwhile comedy.