Anna Kendrick on Pitch Perfect 2 and Not Trying Too

HardAPRIL 29, 2015

At one point in Pitch Perfect 2, for no especially compelling narrative reason, the Barden Bellas, an
all-girl a cappella group at a fictional Georgia college, find their way to an underground sing-off hosted
by a pajama-clad harmony geek played by David Cross. The other contestants include the
Treblemakers, the Bellas male counterparts; a highly disciplined German vocal ensemble and some
Green Bay Packers. Its a single elimination contest with strict rules, and the first category is Songs
About Butts
If the 100-odd minutes of Pitch Perfect 2, briskly directed by Elizabeth Banks from a jam-packed
script by Kay Cannon, consisted only of that scene, I wouldnt be disappointed. And if this is what
musical comedy looks like on film today, thats O.K., too: the music is catchy and the jokes connect,
even when theyre easy. You can tell this is a sequel by the occasionally frantic mood and a sense of
scale that feels a little off sometimes. Pitch Perfect was a charming campus comedy with humor that
was naughty and sweet and had a sharp sense of the pop-culture moment. Its success has allowed (or
perhaps forced) this installment to be bigger, louder and wilder, with new, sometimes redundant
characters, celebrity cameos Snoop Dogg! Jake Tapper! The Green Bay Packers! and artificially
elevated dramatic stakes. Some of the underdog appeal is gone, but a victory lap can be its own kind of
fun, and more is not necessarily something to complain about, especially when what there is more of is
Fat Amy.
After an onstage wardrobe malfunction makes the Bellas pariahs in the a cappella world the mishap,
in front of an audience including President and Mrs. Obama, becomes an international news story
they set out to sing their way back to the top. They must overcome the skepticism of powerful
podcasters (John Michael Higgins and Ms. Banks, playing a variation on her Hunger Games smileyunderminer role), dissension in their own ranks and of course those Germans, whose leader is an icily
charismatic Valkyrie (Birgitte Hjort Sorensen).
Plot is kind of beside the point, though. Its there to give the characters something to do when theyre
not singing or acting silly. In the case of Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson), that is exactly never, but she and
Bumper (Adam Devine) her friend-with-benefits, nonetheless contrive to encounter a bit of love
trouble. Thats one story. Another involves Beca (Anna Kendrick), whose commitment to the Bellas is
tested by her internship at a record label, a situation that allows Keegan-Michael Key to steal a bunch
of scenes as her boss.
New Bella blood arrives in the person of Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), who enrolls at Barden with the sole
ambition of following in the footsteps of her mother (Katey Sagal) and becoming a Bella. Not to spoil
anything, but she does and also gets a romantic subplot of her own, with a tongue-tied crooner played
by Ben Platt.
ts all very cute, and kind of beside the point. The glory of Pitch Perfect is that its devoted, above all,
to the friendship and shared ambition of young women, and that it finds plenty of room within that
premise for raunchiness, ridiculousness and warmth. The casual busyness of the plots does not distract
from the essence of the movie, which is the pleasure and occasional stress of hanging out with likeminded girlfriends as you ease your way toward adulthood. Dudes are nice to have around, but the
pursuit of them is a whole lot less than the meaning of life.
Pitch Perfect 2 is not as barbed as Girls or as anarchic as Broad City (its also studiously PG-13),
but it lives in their neighborhood or maybe a nearby suburb. And its arrival is another sign of the
extent to which feminism is reshaping the landscape of American comedy, and not a moment too soon.

Not every joke is in the best taste, and there are some failures of imagination, especially in the way the
nonwhite Bellas (Ester Dean, Hana Mae Lee and Chrissie Fit) are confined to the margins and to the
kind of stereotyping that tries to subvert itself with knowingness.
Maybe they will blossom in Pitch Perfect 3. Meanwhile, this installment has improbable, inspired
musical numbers and frequent occasions when everyone else wisely stands back and lets Ms. Wilson
riff, gesticulate and manage to be utterly crude and impossibly graceful at the same time, as if she were
the solution to a complicated math problem involving Divine, Dame Edna and Doris Day. Forget what
I said before about the Green Bay Packers and songs about butts: If the whole movie were just Fat Amy
singing in a rowboat youll see what Im talking about I would not go away mad.
Pitch Perfect is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Campus life is probably not quite this
wholesome. Neither is popular music, for that matter.