Director: Steven Brill
Rating: 3/5
Adam Sandler keeps returning with fake voices that irritate viewers who have to ask why was that necessary. This is the case in his new release, Sandy Wexler.
Sandy Wexler (Adam Sandler) is a talent manager who hunts potential talents, but unlikely for others he genuinely cares and promises he will always do what is best for them. This is true because Sandy basically loses those clients who achieve a career in music, as he either realizes (or someone pushes him to realize) that his geeky personality and old-fashioned publicity methods are causing his clients more damage than good.
This is because Sandy will lie pretty much every time he opens his mouth, but at the same time he does not know PR techniques of sending a press release or creating a PR stunt. He can simply bump into a talent occasionally, offer them unconditional support (predominantly moral) and be there for them until they possibly succeed. We could say that this was the indirect positive portrayal of PR as a profession for Sandy lies too much as the film tells us, and he does not know techniques which are not portrayed negatively here. The film also correctly recognizes that PR is about reputation and what others say about you (check definition of PR here) and this is then projected onto Sandy as a person who clearly fails to contribute towards reputation management of his clients.
In the end, one of his clients, Courtney (Jennifer Hudson) returns to him and they fall in love, live happily ever after and have a second wedding ceremony. Very Hollywood style even though this is a Netflix original. But, the ultimate message of the movie is that good will always win and that we will not lose if we care. Just like Sandy didn’t. And, surprisingly, Sandy stops lying which gets rewarded with relationship he wanted, i.e. when he finally started to tell the truth then he was able to ask Courtney not to marry the wrong man but go with him instead.
The film has funny elements, albeit it does feel exaggerated a bit. Sandler’s voice is excessively irritating and this is indeed once again one of Sandler’s bad movies, but this is the one we still love. As one commentator said, it seems that bad acting is finally starting to work in Sandler’s favor (see at the link). It is enough to remember The Ridiculous 6, which was ripped in shreds by critiques (e.g. see Rotten Tomatoes).
However, Netflix’s report has showed popularity of Sandler, i.e. in a statement to shareholders Netflix said the following,
“Just ahead of the release of our third film from Adam Sandler, Sandy Wexler , we announced the renewal of our deal with Sandler to premiere an additional four films exclusively on Netflix around the world. We continue to be excited by our Sandler relationship and our members continue to be thrilled with his films. Since the launch of The Ridiculous 6 , Netflix members have spent more than half a billion hours enjoying the films of Adam Sandler” (see full report).
I suppose this data goes again in favor of Sandy Wexler’s message that being persistent pays off no matter how bad you are, so long as you care.
Thank you for reading.