Movie Review: Pitch Perfect

          There’s no real reason for me to like this movie.  On the surface it appears to be a cappella’s Bring It On or Drum Line, and nether of those movies are worth the film they were recorded on.  What more could be said about the a cappella world that wasn’t said in Glee.  Even they ran out of interesting stories half way through the first season.  Yet, I saw the trailer and I fell in love.  I had to see this movie.  I should have felt a great deal of shame harboring those feelings, they should have been something I kept under the vest, but I didn’t, I tweeted to the world that it was a movie I wasn’t going to miss.  The cast certainly made it easier, Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Anna Camp, and most of all, Brittany Snow.  The writer’s resume also helped.  Kay Cannon got her start writing for 30 Rock and has sense moved on to New Girl, two shows that are at the top of the comedy field.  So, I joined a bunch of teenage girls and headed to the theater to watch.

            The best word I can use to describe Pitch Perfect is cute, because at its heart that’s what it is, cute.  That’s not to say it isn’t funny, the movie’s one liners come at a rapid pace keeping you chuckling through out its 112 minutes, but ultimately what shines through is its heart.  It isn’t able to totally stay clear of cliché, but it handles the material in such a way that you’re never bothered by the tropes.  Pitch Perfect is a movie that is aware of what it is and is able to both make fun of it and deliver the goods.  With an obvious reverence to The Breakfast Club and jokes like two girls from the a cappella group who have no lines suddenly declaring that they have been there the whole time, Cannon showcased that she could write a movie that fit into a specific genre while making fun of that genre at the same time.

            It might just be that I have a huge crush on Kendrick and Snow, I’m not above admitting it, but I really enjoyed Pitch Perfect.  It’s not a piece of profound art.  It doesn’t have some grand message it’s trying to convey.  It doesn’t contain any Oscar winning performances.  What it is, aside from two not needed puke jokes, is good clean fun and entertainment.  It’s cute.  And, every once and a while, that’s exactly what you could use in your life, a little bit of cute.