If you like laughing, and/or offensive satire, and/or Lego Movie level of subversion and playing with expectations, and have not seen Sausage Party yet, then get off your ass.
Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Ariel Shaffir, and Kyle Hunter have crafted a script that is at once borderline offensive, childishly juvenile, remarkably subversive, and meta in a way that most audiences probably won’t expect, and had me laughing in a way I hadn’t since the end credit montage to 22 Jump Street (which I had to watch twice, as I’d missed most of the jokes due to laughing so hard).
Here, the film imagines what a day in the life of supermarket items would be like: an eternal cycle of starting each and every day with the exact same joyful song, and the hope that the gods (humans) would choose them to be taken out to the Great Beyond, wherein their every wish will be fulfilled. Hot dog Frank (Rogen) and hot dog bun Brenda (Kristen Wiig) know that they belong together, and can’t wait for the chance to be paired off on Red White and Blue Day, their impatience drives them to “touch tips” (finger tips), which is taboo in the world of the supermarket.
When Honey Mustard (Danny McBride) is returned to the store, he tells of a horrible, hellish place where the gods eat their followers, and existence is a living hell. Broken, he attempts to commit suicide after he is chosen to go back to the Great Beyond, and after Frank tries to save him, both Frank and Brenda wind up separated from the rest of their friends, who make it out into the Great Beyond. This incident also causes them to run afoul of Douche (Nick Kroll), who ends up with a bent nozzle and thrown away, before literally juicing up and vowing to avenge himself on Frank and Brenda.
Hoping to find their ways back to their shelves, Frank and Brenda meet fellow displaced foods Sammy Bagel Jr. (Edward Norton) and pita bread/wrap/floppy fuck Lavash (David Krumholtz), and learn even moreso that the world is a cruel, horrible place.
Satire is extremely hard to do well, and this film could easily and readily be misconstrued for being racist. All of the food items are gross caricatures of every type of stereotype imaginable (Sammy Bagel Jr. is played as a Woody Allen kvetch, with a massive nose; Lavash is designed to look like he’s wearing a thawb; and once the characters make it to the Mexican food aisle…holy shit).
This film takes stereotypes to their most absurd extreme, and the use of food items is, strangely, very apt for that purpose (think about how food is separated in the supermarket, and how it is described: “Mexican food” items run the gamut from Latin American to South American food…yet it’s all lumped together. Hell, even Sammy and Lavash get into a discussion about how they have to share the same aisle…much to their collective chagrin).
If this film were to focus primarily on that aspect of society, it would have been a tall order, but directors Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon also break down blind faith (and contrarianism). In a matter of just about five lines near the climax, Sausage Party explores polemics, and why they’re so very, very wrong and unhelpful when discussing existential beliefs and differences in opinion, and how hope, as a concept, can lead to real, substantial change. Yeah…that wasn’t something I was expecting from a cartoon movie whose villain is a ‘roided up literal douche.
But JL…you’re asking…is this comedy comedic? Holy shit, yes. Yes it is. This is “needs a second or third viewing” level of comedy, not just for the density of irreverent humor and background jokes, but simply due to knowing I missed jokes simply from laughing so hard (I know I missed half of the massive orgy scene at the end, as I was crying from laughter).
The film opens on a parody of Disney musicals (and is written by Oscar winner Alan Menkin), which starts off light and whimsical with characters singing through different styles as we see each food aisle, before a chorus by Nazi-garbed, goose-stepping sauerkraut singing about “killing the Juice”. From then, it doesn’t let up.
The voice acting is phenomenal. Seth Rogen is, as always, his dry, stoner self, and Kristen Wiig continues to be one of the funniest comedians working. Nick Kroll was absolutely superb as Douche, and just got more unhinged and douche-y as the film progressed and Douche went deeper and deeper off the deep end (just wait until you see how he first juices up). Bill Hader plays several characters (Native American whiskey bottle Firewater; the abso-fucking-lutely hilarious Tequila; and El Guaco), and it’s almost a shame that Danny McBride (and several others like Anders Holm, who was a pleasant surprise) only play one character each. Perhaps their voices are too recognizable, but I was hoping they’d reappear as different characters.
Hell, that might just be the only caveat I had with the movie: its voice actors were so great, I just wanted them back. However, Selma Hayek plays taco Teresa in both a sincere, and utterly hilarious way (her Spanish cursing-out of Douche was brilliant), and any movie that allows Michael Cera to curse up a storm and be this delightfully, refreshingly offensive is perfect (even still, my girlfriend and I constantly quote his back-handed compliment to a deformed and crushed hot dog bun, “I like your face. It’s interesting. I love how it just, like, gives up halfway through.”)
The film ends on a very meta moment, one that calls back to the Lego Movie’s theme, and it leaves a very interesting door open for a sequel, about which I’m all over. I can’t possibly recommend Sausage Party enough, and will be setting aside time to catch it a second time as well. 4/5 Peeled-off Banana Faces.
Sausage Party is playing in theaters now.