Dripping with contempt for its main characters, “Butter"” slathers such condescension onto its Midwest setting, you’ll either find it insulting or pandering.
Our archvillain is Laura Pickler (Jennifer Garner), a politically conservative control freak. Despite her grand ambitions, this small-town bully grabs power where she can get it — namely, at the Iowa State Fair butter-carving competition. Just to be sure we always know who to root for and against, Laura’s rival is a wide-eyed, kind-hearted foster child named Destiny (Yara Shahidi).
Appropriately enough for a movie built on two-dimensional cartoons of amoral adults and innocent children, Shahidi is the only actor who emerges with her dignity fully intact.
Olivia Wilde overplays as a rough-edged stripper, Alicia Silverstone gives Destiny’s vegan foster mom a single beatific expression and Hugh Jackman chews scenery as Laura’s good-ol’-boy ex.
It’s Garner, however, who defines the film’s severe judgment of rural ignorance. No doubt she was directed towards such a broad, purse-lipped portrayal, but it’s a shame she was unable to expand upon it.
Butter sculpting — a real passion, for some — is a nicely offbeat starting point, and the corporate nature of contemporary state fairs offers a potentially fun subject. But while it’s one thing to create biting social satire; it’s quite another to shoot at such easy targets.
eweitzman@nydailynews.com
Source : nydailynews[dot]com
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