The pitch is pitch-perfect: a vigilante school teacher, played in Eddie Baeur beige by Dawson’s Creek Katie, goes on a killing spree when she discovers that a bunch of recently released prisoners have come to her pristine little town. Frankly, if that’s not a good storyline, I don’t know what is. Yet when Miss Meadows premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last April, it met mixed reviews, with The Hollywood Reporter claiming that the movie “missed its satirical targets” and “screenwriter Hopkins is unsuccessful in navigating the absurd story’s jarring tonal shifts.”
Oomph, but also, I don’t care, because the concept is so strong, the trailer nicely executed, and hi Americans watch movies about warring apes I’m totally good. Still, there are some red flags. Karen Hopkins, the writer behind the pink-eyed weepie, Stepmom, directs – and here for the first time. Dark comedies always mix poorly with melodramatic tragedies, and from the amount of “crying while sliding down a wall” in the trailer – we’re in for some Xanax.
Miss Meadows is scheduled for wide theatrical release this upcoming November. I, for one, am happy to see a movie featuring a female director and starring a female protagonist, even if that director produced Stepmom and that protagonist once fell in love with Pacey. “There are bad people in the world,” Miss Meadows tells us, “and they shouldn’t be around the good people, especially the little ones.” Wrong, ridiculous, absurd – and exactly why I’ll show up.