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Support the Girls

Soulful bait-and-switch

Lisa (the amazing Regina Hall) is the manager of a tacky, Hooters-type sports bar out by the highway charmingly called “Double Whammies.” Despite her seamy milieu, Lisa loves her girls and her customers, too, and even the sleazeball owner. She cares. Her two main BFF workers are played by an excellent Shayna McHayle and Haley Lu Richardson, who made The Edge of Seventeen such a memorable movie. 

This day-in-the-life portrait, told with elegance and subtlety by indie wizard Andrew Bujjalski, promises a fun and breezy time at the movies. But it’s genius is that it’s really a bait-and-switch. It is indeed fun and breezy, but underneath all the jokes lies keen observations on institutional sexism and a new perspective on the lives of marginalized people. And it does all this without the slightest hint of preaching. (93 min)