Directed By Jay Chandrasekhar

Starring – Jo Koy, Lydia Gaston, Brandon Wardell

The Plot – Stand-up comedy sensation Jo Koy stars as a man returning home for an Easter celebration with his riotous, bickering, eating, drinking, laughing, loving family, in this love letter to his Filipino American community.

Rated PG-13 for some strong adult language and suggestive references

Easter Sunday | Official Trailer [HD] – YouTube

POSITIVES

“Easter Sunday” serves as one of those rare but richly insightful experiences in cultural representation, especially within an opportunity as vibrant and extensive as the kind that the Filipino community can bring. In illustrating such, Chandrasekhar is not only able to zero in on the best aspect of the film, with a nourishing heartfelt center that echoes the very love and pride of its people for our own experiences and interpretation, but also elicits warmth towards a holiday film that surprisingly is as rarely rendered as that of the very people it is depicting. In addition to this, while the collective force of the supporting ensemble leaves slightly more to be desired, the work of Koy at the movie’s centerpiece conjures an energy and commitment that proves he’s much better than the film he has become saddled with. The material is entirely problematic here, but it never keeps Koy from being the kind of on-screen presence to constantly drive the narrative, instead conjuring a resiliency that can at least temporarily signal what audiences find so engaging about the comedian, with a charm that is exuberated far beyond the confinement of a script so obtusely dense.

NEGATIVES

The fact that a movie called “Easter Sunday” is being released in the first week of August is the least confounding aspect of this film. Eclipsing this sentiment begins with the script itself, which is every bit emotionally flat as it is cinematically predictable. It’s fine enough when the film is an experience piece, with a family grating on the nerves of our established protagonist for a getaway weekend, but it’s so much more underwhelming when it attempts to tie itself to something more ambitious, in this instance an unnecessary antagonist subplot that literally goes nowhere as quick and unnoticeable as creatively possible. When this cartoon character decides to make his presence felt on our film exactly three times in the 91-minute run time, the tonal capacity shifts abruptly to drama, which it never even remotely earns, along the way to establishing a conflict that is as derivative as any film you’ve ever seen. Aside from this, the performances are as stale as their characterization is one-dimensional. It’s the kind of people you can accurately interpret within a single solitary scene, therefore rendering their necessity as unimportant the longer the film persists, with many feelings derivative of one another, and others never receiving more than a line of dialogue to keep their relevance influential. The worst is easily Koy’s on-screen son, played coldly by Brandon Wardell, who remarkably lacks a single believable emotion to ever keep him from being a glaring distraction to the many juggling plates of dynamics that the script constantly asks him to maintain. In addition, the production value and overall direction from Chandrasekhar leaves plenty more to be desired. I’m not asking for billion-dollar presentations or artistic merit for a family comedy, but when the blandness crafts a cheap consistency that’s unavoidable in every shot or framing, I can’t forgive even mediocre expectations. The lighting breeds the kind of artificiality that doesn’t line up cohesively with the influence of exterior scenes in sunlight, the editing obstructs continuity with a few strange techniques that abruptly cut scenes before it feels like they rightfully should conclude, and the cinematography underwhelms with the most basic approaches in angles and movements, all the while virtually ignoring the Golden Gate skyline in setting that should supplant at least temporary beauty in establishing shots. This of course all pales in comparison to the film’s biggest problem: it’s not funny. While it’s true that comedy is subjective to every person, I feel like the problem here is universal, with much of the material geared specifically towards the Filipino community feeling ironed out and low hanging in ways that make the punchlines feel evident miles before they materialize. Nothing about it is remotely effective to even generate a pity laugh out of habit, with the worst offenses solidifying the idea that a bad comedy is so much worse than any other bad genre film, based entirely on the concept that it can’t even accomplish the most basic of tasks that define it as such in the first place. The sitcom level stature never even remotely tests the PG-13 rating in ways that can at least provide temporary relief from the material with an alluring edginess, instead reveling entirely in the consistency in campiness that never feels designed for any singular age bracket of audience to take pleasure from the engagement. Because of such, the humor doesn’t just fail, but fails miserably, leaving enough padded space and time for audience reactions that are made all the more infuriating and desperate when the desired punchlines don’t reach their intended targets, creating a vacuum for energy and charisma that can be felt on nearly every ensuing measure of the underwhelming execution.

OVERALL
“Easter Sunday” is a bad egg, but thankfully the kind that is easily forgettable ten minutes after you leave the theater. With embarrassingly ineffective humor and one-dimensional types in characterization and performances, Chandrasekhar cements a missed opportunity for Filipino culture that never even remotely justifies the existence of its big screen rendering, unfastening the wheels of a vehicle designed entirely with the talents of Koy in mind.

My Grade: 3/10 or F