Breaking News in Yuba County – A Hit-or-Miss All-Star Crime Comedy

The trailer for Breaking News in Yuba County looked like a wickedly-funny ride full of crazy people doing crazy things including a jilted wife, a missing husband nobody can find, a pair of thugs hunting down just about everyone and Juliette Lewis as the fakest talk show host ever. Putting all of that together in a film and making it entertaining would be a huge ask for most directors, particularly with one of the best cats in recent memory. While Wanda Sykes adds most of the comic relief, it’s Alison Janney as Sue Buttons that delivers the standout performance here.

Breaking News in Yuba County follows Sue Buttons, a woman who is doing her best to hold on. She’s got her daily positive affirmations on a loop in her earbuds, but she’s not very convincing. She’s a woman who is doing everything she can to matter, but nobody seems to care. She has been overlooked, underestimated and ignored for far too long. Something’s gotta change. So when that something finally comes along, Sue decides to use it to her advantage. With a missing husband that nobody can find, Sue plays the perfect grieving wife. Sue thinks she has finally got the break she’s been craving all her life – the chance for people to take notice of her. Going to press with her story and feeding the hugely popular talk show host Gloria Michaels (Juliette Lewis) all the sad details, Sue slowly begins to see how her husband’s death has provided the perfect opportunity for her to be somebody.

There’s no denying that this story is sick and twisted and even a little sad when analyzing it from a moral standpoint. Sue is benefitting from the death of her husband by lying about him being missing. She doesn’t realise how much of a ripple effect her husband’s disappearance will have on others until it’s too late. But that’s the whole point – Sue is beyond caring. And that’s rather sad and a little deranged. The “ripple” effect ends up slamming right into the faces of various characters including Petey (Jimmi Simpson), the brother of Sue’s missing husband, and Rita and Debbie played by Wanda Sykes and Ellen Barkin respectively who are indirectly pulled into the ensuing mayhem as the result of Sue’s lies.

It’s difficult to blend comedy with crime and have the audience find the perfect middle ground appreciatively. The funny scenes were aptly so, but it almost felt wrong to be laughing at someone shooting a whole bunch of bullets into a man’s chest. At times it felt to me like there were too many moving pieces for the film to flow smoothly. Awkwafina played a serious role as Mina, and handled herself rather well, but it felt like her character didn’t have the impact she could have had. Sykes was hilarious as always and definitely complimented the “lighter” scenes in the film. But there’s a serious side to the story that’s almost a little too dark to be slapstick funny.

In the end, Breaking News in Yuba County is a little hit and miss. Janney’s performance was nothing short of incredible and as sad as her story is, Janney brings it home in style. Sue’s new affirmation should probably be something like “Crime doesn’t usually pay folks unless your name is Sue Buttons”.

still courtesy of MGM Studios

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