Lazy Susan

"Lazy Susan" aims hazily between the sad-sack valentine likes of "Muriel's Wedding" and something more satirically misanthropic, missing a target it never quite commits to in the first place.

[W]hile the Nick Peet-directed film has its cheerfully outrageous moments... even mild shock value in the time of an epidemic might not be just what the doctor ordered.

Instead of being condescending about the Wisconsin characters and their mediocre lives, the comedy shows fondness for them.

Susan is more of a collection of quirks and bad choices. There just isn't much to her.

Despite its talented, overqualified cast, Lazy Susan simply feels like a mistake.

The movie's pace seems glacial. It's as if the filmmakers tossed a bunch of fish into a barrel and didn't bother to shoot them.

Talented cast can't save underwhelming comedy.

But the problem is without that kind of arc, the audience is being asked to watch an insufferably selfish person be irritating for an hour and a half with little to no dramatic progression or catharsis.

... plays like a failed sitcom pilot, differentiated by nonchalant acceptance of Susan's sexuality. That's nice, yet the film isn't nearly funny or clever enough to be considered progressive.

[T]he screenplay...is rarely inventive or inspired.... Or, to put it in terms the filmmakers might understand, it shouldn't be so indolent, idle, slothful, or l-a-z-y.