‘The Deb’ Review: Not Quite a Rebel Yell But Wilson’s Dynamic Directorial Debut Delights | TIFF

The most successful actor-turn-directors tend to be those who have a clearly-defined voice that they are able to transfer from in front of the camera to behind it. A strong knowledge of craft will only get you so far; having something to say and saying it in a way that only you can is the mark of a true auteur. With her directorial debut, The Deb, Rebel Wilson may not quite prove herself an auteur right off the bat, but she does make a smooth transition into the director’s chair, making a film just as irreverently funny and full of vibrant joy as she appears on screen. The musical, an adaptation of the Australian stage musical featuring music by Meg Washington and lyrics by Washington and Hannah Reilly (who also wrote the book), is a whip-smart satire of Gen Z’s progressivism and social media addiction, as entertaining an anti-bullying message movie as you’re ever likely to see.

The bouncy opening number “FML” instantly sets the cheeky tone as big city rich girl Maeve (Charlotte MacInnes) and her friends sing about how awful their incredibly privileged lives are (“My life is a living hell / My mum got us all tickets to go see Adele / Row D? That’s not even the front / Adele isn’t cool, babe, your mum is a cunt”). It doesn’t take long for her to take her privilege too far, though, staging a protest that crosses a line and gets her canceled, forcing her principal mother to send her to live with her cousin Taylah (Natalie Abbott) and uncle Rick (Shane Jacobson), the Mayor of Dunburn, a small town in the middle of nowhere in the Australian bush country. Taylah wants nothing more than to get a date to the town’s annual debutante ball, in part because her dead mother was so into it and looked so beautiful when she went. But the local mean girls will never allow it, especially since Taylah prefers to dress comfortably and isn’t afraid to get dirty when working on the farm with her dad. Maeve derides the ball as “antiquated heteronormative bullshit,” but once she realizes how good helping Taylah and the town as a whole achieve some level of glamor would be for her public image, she agrees to help her cousin find a date and attend the ball with her. The only problem? There aren’t exactly a lot of boys in town.

The Deb is as classic a piece of musical comedy as you can get. The characters are defined by one goal or personality trait, the subplots are practically non-existent, and major turns for characters happen extremely quickly, often over the course of one song. But Wilson and her collaborators color within the established boundaries of the genre with such vibrant colors that the film is a great deal of fun to watch. A big part of that is the songs. The cheekily hilarious lyrics are matched by the music, which cribs liberally from famous pop songs (the staccato piano-and-drum strut of “FML” owes a heavy debt to Katy Perry’s “Roar”) in an attempt to musicalize the sound of teen life. The uptempo numbers all have a bounciness to them that will have you dancing in your seat, while the ballads have a soaring quality that effectively pulls you into the characters’ lives. It’s a delightful score that hits all the right notes, and the cast has the singing chops to pull it off, with enough personality in their voices to break through the overly-filtered production.

In the tradition of the best Australian comedies, Wilson has stacked her cast with memorable character actors who can deliver even the blandest of lines with enough quirky force to get a laugh. She steps in front of the camera to play local salon owner and desperate “cool mom” Janette, helping to set the tone with her hilariously deadpan skewering of momager tropes (yes, Janette manages her daughter’s girl group, The Pixie Cups, local celebrities who perform anywhere and everywhere that will pay them). Jacobson constantly finds new ways of playing befuddlement as Rick deals with Maeve’s outspoken progressivism as he desperately tries to get relief funds from the government to help with the drought that has afflicted his town. He’s also incredibly sweet for his half of the underbaked romance between Rick and town seamstress Shell (Tara Morice, delightful in her underplaying of Shell’s spinster qualities). Fun as the ensemble is, though, the film is really powered by its two leads. MacInnes and Abbott are firecrackers, exploding onto the screen with star quality. They’re perfectly cast as opposites: MacInnes’s deep, rich vocals complement Abbott’s fluttery sweetness, while the latter brings a deep core of sadness to Taylah that counters the former’s fire as the activist Maeve. They throw off sparks whenever they share the screen, both incredibly open performers who give back what the other gives them.

Behind the camera, Wilson gets the job done with minimal muss and fuss. There’s nothing particularly showy here, even with the musical numbers, but she keeps things legible and well-paced, giving everything just the right amount of room to breathe. Her strongest asset is her strong handle on the film’s tone; it’s hard enough to make a traditional movie musical where the musical numbers fit organically into the story, but The Deb also has a mean satirical streak to its humor, which only adds to the level of difficulty. The swipes at Gen Z can be a little easy, but the film is so smartly written that they get big laughs – “tradition is just peer pressure from dead people” is just one example of the many pitch-perfect jokes in Reilly’s screenplay, indebted to the slang of current teens but always in on the joke. Despite the sharp sting of the comedy, Wilson and her performers bring an equal amount of heart out of the material. Having Abbott and MacInnes helps, since their scenes together are the best in the film, but all involved treat the relationship between Taylah and Maeve with the utmost care. While the inevitable fight between them feels particularly rushed and poorly justified, the performers invest it with such soul that you feel for the characters anyway. 

That’s the case throughout The Deb: it’s not a great movie, but the personality and heart that shine through every frame make it an enjoyable watch. Wilson has starred in enough crowd-pleasing comedies to know how they work, and for her first time in the director’s chair, she proves that she can make one, too.

Grade: B

This review is from the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival where The Deb had its world premiere as the festival closer. There is no U.S. distribution at this time.