Our hearts did not collectively shatter when Tina Fey turned down the opportunity for a sequel, because let’s be honest, has there ever been a sequel to a fantastic movie that wasn’t a total letdown? There are moments that should’ve been explored more instead of trying to make old people feel cool with drugs, alcohol and hanging around a bunch of young people.
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Based on Kim Barker’s memoir The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan, this movie stars Fey as Kim Baker, a New York-based TV journalist in 2003 who’s sick of her white-collar rut. It’s territory Fey knows well and she nails it while still making the occasionally smug Kim endearing: the frustration in doing work that is not taken seriously, the deftly tossed-off wisecracks, the under-her-breath observations about the idiocy that surrounds her. I was surprised the Albert Brooks movie Looking For Comedy in the Muslim World was so poorly received 10 years ago. “For me, it was about these people and these relationships”. “I think it takes curiosity and the desire to challenge yourself to do things that really scare you”.
But the audience won’t find the sex scenes with her character’s love interest, Martin Freeman, to be too shocking. In it, she tells tales variously wild, comical and poignant of her years as South Asia bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune. It’s not extremely rewarding, but it is fun and enjoyable for whoever loves Tina Fey enough to faint when she waves at you.
Fey trusted the filmmakers so much that she wound up relaxing into a role that required her to show off her dramatic chops for one of the first times in her career. “That is not my story”, she said emphatically.
The Plot: When reporter Kim Baker’s (Fey) life needs something more, she decides to “shake it all up” by taking an assignment in a war zone. “And I certainly understand that feeling of being one of very few women in a sea of dudes”. She knows next to nothing about the country and its people, and undergoes immediate culture shock.
Barker had meetings with screenwriter Robert Carlock and learned that significant changes would be made in her story to make it more Hollywood-friendly.
There’s definitely comedy in the movie, but was there temptation to make it more absurd, like 30 Rock or Kimmy Schmidt? Do you know what’s a good Tina joke and a bad one? WTF isn’t exactly a comedy, but it has plenty of amusing moments, showcasing the gallows humor that reporters rely upon when faced with death all around them.
“I wish I could say I had a master business plan”. It worked so much better when Steve Carell started The Way Way Back (a way, way better movie) by rudely telling his future stepson that he was only 3 or 4, but could raise that number during their summer vacation.
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Correction: March 3, 2016 An earlier version of this article misstated that the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot characters in question are Pakistani.
