Butter

Plot synopsis:
Destiny (Shahidi) is a ten-year-old foster child in Iowa who gets placed with Ethan (Corddry) and Jill Emmet (Silverstone). While visiting the Iowa State Fair by herself, she wanders into the exhibit of the winning butter sculpture, a life-sized Last Supper, and skillfully finishes the Holy Grail cup, which impresses the sculpture's creator, Bob Pickler (Burrell).
Bob had won the fair's butter-sculpture contest for the past 15 years straight; because of his dominance, he is asked to abstain from future competitions to give others a chance. Bob's wife Laura (Garner), overly competitive and socially ambitious, goes to the home of the competition's organizer to protest. Bob goes to a strip club and solicits stripper Brooke (Wilde) for sex in his minivan. Laura discovers them and T-bones the van with her SUV.
Laura decides to enter the county's preliminary sculpture competition herself because of the social status that comes with winning. Destiny decides to enter as well, as does Brooke, who just wants to harass the Picklers because Bob owes her $600. Despite practice, Laura comes in second to Destiny.
When Brooke appears at the Picklers' seeking her money, Bob's daughter Kaitlin (Greene) admits her and takes her up to her room. After talking a bit, Kaitlin challenges Brooke to a game of truth-or-dare which escalates to them having sex. Kaitlin is drawn to Brooke's alternative style and attitude; Brooke just wants the money (she ups the amount to $1200) and Kaitlin says she can get it. While this is going on, Kaitlin's stepmom Laura is hooking up with Boyd Bolton (Jackman), an old high-school boyfriend who is now a used-car salesman. She's seducing him to get him to falsely testify to county officials that Ethan paid him to help Destiny in the competition. Laura suggests a rematch at the state fair. Destiny agrees; everyone else is disgruntled.
Brooke gets her money from infatuated Kaitlin, meets Destiny after school, and takes her to the mall to buy her a $1,200 set of chef's knives to help her in the rematch with Laura. When Destiny gets home, a social worker informs her that her biological mother has died.
At the state fair, Laura carves a replica of John F. Kennedy's car immediately after his assassination complete with the president's blown-up skull and Jackie Kennedy and Clint Hill crawling onto the trunk; Destiny creates her biological mother holding her infant self in a rocking chair. That night before the judging, Boyd sneaks into the butter-sculpture room and defaces Destiny's sculpture with a blowtorch. Destiny, disappointed and expecting to lose now, encounters Laura in the restroom and offers the forgiveness of her handshake. Laura tells Destiny that winning the butter-sculpting contest means more to her than the little girl can comprehend. Laura feels she has little opportunity to distinguish herself otherwise, while Destiny has talent and her entire life to realize her own potential. Despite the damage, Destiny's sculpture wins. The sabotage of the piece is recognized as "higher art", as the judges believe the melted face lends the butter sculpture a greater depth. Destiny goes on to win in the state competition, where judges give a positive critique on her piece, deeming it an "angst-ridden exploration of post-natal abandonment." Upon her victory, Destiny assures Laura that the butter-carving contest is "not all that you have". Laura kneels down to Destiny and hugs her, understanding that she must move on to greater triumphs that are her own.
Later, Destiny is officially adopted by the Emmets and Laura is running for Governor of Iowa, claiming that God appeared to her and advised her to run.

Tags: satire, entertaining

Review:
However, I figured it deserved a chance considering my love of Olivia Wilde especially, but also the other big names like Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Garner, Ashley Greene, and so on.
In small-town Iowa, an adopted girl discovers her talent for butter carving and finds herself pitted against an ambitious local woman in their town's annual contest.Let me say right off the bat what I did not like about this film: the political angle.
When butter sculpture king, Bob Pickler (Ty Burrell) is asked to step aside after 15 years in the spotlight, his vengeful, social climber wife, Laura (Jennifer Garner) decides to enter to win to keep the Pickler name at the top.
There are some cute digs about race and ambition.I have never been a huge Jennifer Garner fan (the over perky grin) but luckily it makes use of the talents of other fine actors especially Olivia Wilde as a stripper, Alicia Silverstone, and Ashley Greene as a teenage daughter.
All we knew about it was that the cast is full of good names, it is a satire built around a butter-carving competition and that director Jim Field Smith is only known for by-the-numbers romantic comedy "She's Out of My League." But somewhere, somehow, the name "Juno" was mumbled by someone and comparisons were just waiting to be made.The question of similarity to "Juno" would be appropriately enough raised, but I'm afraid the similarity ends just past the 'Jennifer Garner movie' and 'Midwestern family ensemble comedy' labels.
Our first main character is Laura Pickler (Jennifer Garner), wife of professional butter-sculpture Bob Picker (Ty Burrell), who has decided that after fifteen years he will retire and live a more quiet, controlled life.
She will join the championship, as well, knowing she will get under Laura's skin and show her that Bob and her were meant for each other.Laura has competition, mainly with a young black orphan named Destiny (Yara Shahidi), who has traveled from house to house, finally finding a family with Rob Corddry and Alicia Silverstone.
The other competitor is the dim-witted, yet good-natured Carol-Ann Stevenson (Kristen Shaal), a fan of Bob's who becomes convinced that she can win the next title, although she is victim to her own ineptitude.Butter plays just like Alexander Payne's film Election did, with its heavily satirized look at suburban culture, and also providing us with a character that has redeemable and despicable qualities.
Surely electric bills for the cooling containers wouldn't be paid contently.Starring: Jennifer Garner, Ty Burrell, Olivia Wilde, Rob Corddry, Ashley Greene, Alicia Silverstone, and Hugh Jackman.
From the cute trailer to the impressive cast to the quirky concept, I was excited to watch Butter for a few laughs, but all I got was misled at every turn; horrible mis-casting, failed joke after failed joke, embarrassing attempts at edginess, not an ounce of originality, culminating with the indulgent, obligatory "outtakes" at the end which were TWICE as unfunny as the movie itself.Director Jim Field Smith sh*t the bed with his attempt to deliver an edgy, midwestern comedy (trying oh so hard to be Election-esque) - having come from British TELEVISION - who thought he would be the right director to add a wry commentary on weird middle America?
Whatever the case, I found myself gritting my teeth after every ATTEMPT at a joke or a button - everything just fell flat!Jennifer Garner is great, but she gets way too much screen time for a villain, and her character (or the way she was directed to play it) is just a boring hybrid of Election's Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman in To Die For. Ty Burrell doesn't KNOW what he's supposed to do, and never becomes anything short of "there", Hugh Jackman?
All the cast pull their weight, and special credit has to be given to show-stealer, Olivia Wilde, who brings a free-spirited intelligence to her ridiculous character Brooke, as only Wilde can, and is probably the movie's funniest character.The one complaint I had with the otherwise great movie, is that the direction seems to jump back and forth between being an edgy, witty comedy for adults and a warmhearted feel-good for the family.
While I can see they were trying to be funny, and at the same time, touching - I felt the mixing could have been smoother.But that aside, Butter takes the overdone, unoriginal underdog-in-a-competition plot line, and manages to turn it into a pretty decent film by injecting with quirky subject matter and diverse, great characters.
Missing more than hitting, Butter churns (sorry!) at a predictable pace occasionally striking the scared cows it aims at w/a game cast including Jennifer Garner, Olivia Wilde, Ty Burrell & 'Clueless" herself, Alicia Silverstone but unlike Payne's films which often pierce their subject matters so hard it hurts, Butter barely leaves a bruise..
Butter Sculpting as a Political Metaphor Yields Good Laughs Upfront But Fizzles by the End. I have to give Jennifer Garner credit for playing a despicable character in sheep's clothing with such unfettered brio in this 2012 comedy, one that aspires to be a darkly eccentric political satire but ultimately becomes too soft-centered for its own good.
With her constantly pinched voice, crisp color-coordinated outfits, perfect hair and make-up and a triple strand of pearls strung tightly around her neck, Garner is obviously playing Laura Pickler as an amalgam of Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman but with a more naked malevolence toward anyone who stands in her way toward the White House.Even though her congenial husband Bob, the Iowa State Fair's 15-time butter sculpting champion, is asked by the judges to bow out of the latest competition, Laura is not about to relinquish her powerful position as queen of the fair and decides to enter the contest herself.
The first butter sculpting contest is set up quite amusingly with the addition of two other contestants: Carol-Ann, a devoted fan girl of Bob's played with ditzy dexterity by Kristen Schaal ("30 Rock"), and a vengeful, hard-edged stripper named Brooke, who is waiting for a $600 payment from Bob for services rendered.As an unsavory character who wants desperately to annihilate Laura's dreams of higher status, Olivia Wilde is a genuine comic revelation who almost steals the entire movie as Brooke.
Although the movie has a sharper edge than "The Campaign", Micallef's screenplay reaches a certain point where you begin to realize that there is little to Laura's motivations beyond her small-minded ambition.It's at this juncture in the story that Hugh Jackman shows up as her former flame Boyd Bolton, a successful car dealer who still holds a torch for Laura and colludes with her to ensure her victory at the fair.
All of the actors and actresses were great in their rolls, Olivia Wilde, Jennifer Garner...etc, however the movie itself was just ridiculous stupid.
That title belongs to Bob Pickler (Ty Burrell) who is retiring from the butter competition but finds no solace at home.He is married to Laura Pickler (Jennifer Garner) who is a real balls- buster, clawing her way to control within this small town.
Meanwhile Ethan (Rob Corddry) and Jill Emmett (Alicia Silverstone) are new foster parents to young black child, Destiny (Yara Shahidi), who finds herself armed only with her wit in a sea of white people.Yes, the film is about butter carving, and yes it is exactly as funny as you would expect that to be.
Kristen Schaal plays one of Laura's butter carving competitors and remains unfunny since she attempted to find a touch-point for reality in her character, when, of course, there isn't one.There are a few ill-advised side plots and everything is extreme, but then again, it is a dark comedy so the jokes cross lines as the genre dictates.
Bob (Ty Burrell), with his domineering second wife, Laura (Jennifer Garner), at his side, has won Iowa state's butter-sculpting contest for the last fifteen years.
(I will give you the resulting film score at the end of my review.)Jennifer Garner and Ty Burrell play a married couple named Laura and Bob Pickler who live a very privileged lifestyle.
Kaitlin is at that rebellious age and her hormones and excitement get the best of her when she finds out that the mysterious hot lady at their front door who wants to talk to her dad, Bob Pickler, is actually a stripper named Brooke (played by Olivia Wilde) and Brooke is demanding a $600 payment from her dad for services recently rendered.While Laura and Bob Pickler are busily engaged with their hands in their current butter sculpture, their daughter is also busily engaged with her tongue in Brooke the stripper's mouth, learning how to climax properly.
Of course this scene has nothing to do with the butter competition but subconsciously, we as parents may get a chuckle out of the scene but may also choose to ask our pwn teenage children what they have been up to lately.The butter carving competition heats up and comes down to the championship battle between Laura Pickler and a cute little 10 year old foster child named Destiny.
And Jennifer Garner was that desperate for money?For writers who lack the imagination, the story of the REAL butter lady from the Iowa State Fair would have made for a good movie without even trying..
While this "film" does have some moments of laughter, it is mostly a series of head scratching moments strung together by cellulose.To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what happened on the set of Butter, the cast is made up of some seasoned veterans and the director has made some decent comedies before ("She's out of My League")but Butter falls flat.The scenes between Brooke and Bob's daughter are completely unrealistic and gratuitous.
Laura's sudden clarity seems cliché, and the whole movie feels cobbled together.Suffice to say, I'll think twice before assuming that the likes of Jennifer Garner, Ty Burrell, Hugh Jackman and Olivia Wilde can put together a quality flick..
The characters for instance never come quite across, as fun, quirky or likable enough ones, while this was obviously the approach the film-makers were aiming for.It tried to be like a fun, cute, heartfelt, warm, independent comedy, with a young kid in it, playing an important role but the movie really is lacking the right required warmth and depth to ever work out as a cute and involving one.
Again, you should blame the writing, that besides focuses on far too many different characters.You also feel that the movie really could had used a good and well known comedy actor in it, playing one of the lead roles.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of great and well known actors in this movie but what it is missing is a charismatic comedy actor who can handle its comedy and timing better and turn some average comedy scenes into something truly hilarious.There are plenty of well known actors in this (Jennifer Garner, Alicia Silverstone, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Ty Burrell, etcetera) but none of them truly makes a lasting impression.
First, Jennifer Garner's Laura Pickler, picturesque wife to the wealthy Bob Pickler (Ty Burrell), butter-carving champion, and who hopes to parlay the esteem she and Bob have amassed over the years into becoming a political power couple.
Her performance veers into hamming territory with some frequency, but she sets the tone for the film's lack of self-seriousness, which proves pivotal to enjoying its odd, almost black sense of humor.The comedy highlights come mostly from Shahidi and her interactions with Rob Corddry, who plays her foster father.
For fans of Burrell on "Modern Family," he's cast as a bit of a fool and completely non-extreme when compared to the shenanigans of his wife, Wilde's Brooke, and others.The script reaches for laughs a small but noticeable percentage of the time, but the fails are cushioned appropriately by the film's cheeky attitude and absolute fearlessness when it comes to political correctness (specifically the lack thereof).
She is not a catalyst for anything, and she does not add anything to the eventual outcome of the movie.I would like to think that an actor like Hugh Jackman is rather embarrassed about his role in the film, albeit with some real comic sense.These are just examples of the unconvincing characters and story line.
And who knew that one can sustain a legacy just by carving out memorable scenes and famous characters from a slab of butter, which sort of begins the story of the husband and wife team of Bob PIckler (Ty Burell) and Laura PIckler (Jennifer Garner).For the Picklers, theirs is a legacy within a small town in Iowa that has been closely linked to their small town fame and fortune.
Undeterred, here is a woman who is as nasty as she is beautiful on the outside, who decided to take things into her own hands, and whatever talent she lacked, she made up for it through sheer hard work to try and take back a title the husband had so willingly given up on.Much of the film revolves around Garner's character, an uber bitch who is hypocritical and very much disliked, where even daughter Kaitlen (Ashley Greene) can't stand her ridiculous ways, and Bob looking for an outlet to express his frustration, much of it sexually as well, in the tattooed stripper Brooke Swinkowski (Olivia Wilde).
And the subplot here is pretty interesting as it is hilarious where money owed from a transaction between Bob and Brooke developed into something a lot more explosive, which in any case Brooke is hell bent on getting back both on personal terms through a relationship with Kaitlen who strangely looks up toward Brooke as an outlet for rebellion and getting on her mother's nerves, and on the professional side by being the spanner in the same butter carving competition Laura competes in.On the other hand, it's not all just the nastiness on display, but a sense of sweetness as well from the other major story arc involving the orphaned life of Destiny (Yara Shahidi), a young girl who has been bounced around foster homes, until she becomes the adopted daughter of Ethan Emmet (Rob Corddry) and Julie Emmet (Alicia Silverstone, yes it's been a while), a childless couple who is adamant in making things work with their new adopted charge.
Destiny discovers having some artistic talent in butter carving, and with Ethan's encouragement, also enrols herself into, yes, the same butter carving contest, which now becomes more than just another small town competition, but develops into the melting pot of those seeking to further their hopes, dreams and even ambition.What's very much fun here lies with the ensemble cast bringing out the quirky characters in this black comedy, where despite some being caricatures, are surprisingly engaging to begin with.
Afterall, the movie is about butter carving.Acting/Casting: 6.5* Directing/Cinematography/Technical: 5.5*Plot/Characters: 5.5* Entertainment Value: 5* Total - 6.5+5.5+5.5+5 = 22.5/4 = 5.625* - Might be Worth watching on TV.
The little girl (Yara Shahidi) and her foster parents (Corddry and Silverstone) all put in enjoyable performances, and there's a cute little message about loving and caring for others.Where I feel this movie fails is as a dark or black comedy.
Ultimately, the light tone, character development, and social commentary make this a fun but forgettable film.The story begins with a super cheesy political-style video introduction praising Bob (Ty Burrell) and Laura (Jennifer Garner) Pickler for his great accomplishments and her unwavering support.
This time, we have Garner's ambitious, even ruthless Laura; Burrell's spineless, unfaithful Bob; Olivia Wilde's gold-digging stripper mistress; and Yara Shahidi's perfectly pure Destiny in a great contrast with her overzealous competitor.
Jackman is hilarious as a dim-witted car salesman used by Garner's character as a sexual pawn, and Corddry is surprisingly effective as Destiny's foster father, giving this mostly superficial comedy a few brief, heartfelt moments and a bit of emotional depth that I quite enjoyed.While the film is generally superficial, it does make an attempt at some social commentary, and while it does so with a satirical tone, it is not truly satire.
"Jennifer Garner try's to go for the comedy but she is unsupported by bad material." Butter is a movie about a couple Bob (Ty Burrell) and Laura (Jennifer Garner) who met when the husband was a champion butter sculpture, then fifteen years after they meet he has won the so many times that know they are asking him to step down to let someone else win.
Also another plot point is a stripper named Brooke (Olivia Wilde) who is looking to get payed from Bob after sleeping with him many many times.This main storyline of the film is a very strange one as I feel that the idea of this small town caring so much about who is the best at making butter into shapes that appeal to people.
The whole time the butter competition is happening is hard to watch and because it's the most talked about thing of the film just makes me hate it more.Garner playing this highly unlikeable women is OK as at times I found her funny even through the times when I could not stand her.
Other cast members include Hugh Jackman, Ty Burrell, Rob Corddry, Kristen Schaal, Ashley Greene and many more people are in the film but they are completely wasted of their talents that would be great in this type of film.I did not like the film feeling that it lived up to my expectations, by that I was not expecting it to be good and it was as horrible as I thought.
Bob seeks comfort in a stripper/prostitute (Olivia Wilde) who gets involved with the contest and also has some great swagger music.Meanwhile a young 10 year old African-American girl, Destiny (Yara Shahidi), is bounced around foster homes.
Enter Destiny (Yara Shahidi), a 10-year-old black foster child who discovers she's pretty darn good at butter carving herself, and takes on Garner.