Worth: $17.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Aaron Jackson, Josh Sharp, Megan Mullaly, Nathan Lane, Megan Thee Stallion, Bowen Yang
Intro:
… a provocative, abrasive, and wildly funny spoof of both the ‘traditional’ stage musical …
A24 made a musical. A24 made a musical with that title. A24 made a musical with that title and Larry Charles directed. And while it isn’t literally about singing dicks, they would not look out of place here for two reasons. One, because Larry Charles already put a talking penis on-screen in Brüno. And two, with the wonky-bonkers nature of this film, a chorus of phalluses wouldn’t be its most outlandish feature.
Adapted from their own off-Broadway show Fucking Identical Twins, writers/stars Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp’s wildly transgressive and Gay remake of The Parent Trap, sees them playing ‘identical twins’ who try to reunite their elderly separated parents. In Dicks: The Musical, this subverted premise is ground zero for the weirdness of heteronormativity, openly taking the piss out of ideas like a family only being valid if it has a mother and father, or that kids should be playing matchmaker for adults.
From there, the songs go full Parker/Stone in lampooning not just all manner of Broadway musical clichés, but also the cringe-ier behaviour patterns in straight society, from the consent-bucking of ‘You Can’t Give Up’, to the ragingly insecure braggadocio of ‘I’ll Always Be On Top’, to Megan Thee Stallion laying down the boss bitch law with ‘Out Alpha The Alpha’.
With that as groundwork, the film takes a similar note to early John Waters in how it highlights the absurdity of hetero behaviour being considered ‘normal’, and then takes pride in directly going in the opposite direction. Larry Charles’ direction involves some of the most deliriously out-of-pocket moments stacked on top of each other like an LSD layer cake, paying off its actively button-pushing attitude by managing to be unpredictable from scene to scene, or even within the same scene. Shit gets really weird once the Sewer Boys show up, and it only gets more out-there from here.
The framing offered by the director, who is no stranger to deep-set provocation through his work with Larry David and Sacha Baron Cohen, and the performances, create just the right tone, so that the ridiculousness of what’s happening on-screen is made even more obvious; but also, the notion that the audience isn’t really meant to side with any of the characters.
Sharp and Jackson as hot-shot salesmen Craig and Trevor are the epitome of whiny entitled white dude, and Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally as their parents are equal parts insane and soaked in vaudeville camp. All framed with the omniscient presence of Bowen Yang as God, serving as storyteller for some premium queercore trash.
Dicks: The Musical won’t work for everyone. Quite frankly, it would be a tad worrying if it did. It’s a provocative, abrasive, and wildly funny spoof of both the ‘traditional’ stage musical and the kind of straight audiences who performatively applaud gay-led productions for their ‘bravery’, as if being respectable was even remotely the point of the exercise. Even on the basis of “this must be seen to be believed”, this could be a bit tricky to successfully recommend to others, but for those who would consider South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut, Avenue Q, or even Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical as among their favourite musicals, you’ll have an absolute blast.