![]() Perry is a comedian by trade, and Koy and Chandrasekhar feature other standup comics in the movie, including Ali and Tiffany Haddish. The movie usually shines brightest when the entire family is together, whether they are enjoying Susan’s house, picnicking in a park, or attending an Easter service hosted by Father Hildo (Rodney Perry). It’s a painful turn because the movie begins with a light, positive atmosphere. ![]() “Easter Sunday” starts as an amiable, enjoyable journey but, unfortunately, breaks down about 40 minutes in, as Kate Angelo and Ken Cheng’s screenplay inexplicably drifts into a mundane plot thread involving money problems and local gangsters. ![]() “Super Troopers” veteran and Broken Lizard co-founder Jay Chandrasekhar directs this family comedy. He’s a standup comic by trade, but Koy was born (and grew up) in Tacoma, Wash, unlike his on-screen character. In real-life, Koy is divorced and has a son. “We wanted (the movie) to be loosely based, but also an embellishment of my life and then still represent the culture,” Koy said. 4th Collider interview with Steve Weintraub, Jo talks about the script. The cast is primarily Filipino, and Koy expressed excitement - through several interviews – over this fact. Even the signposts of Filipino cultural life proudly depicted - the food Susan makes, a halo-halo mall date between Junior and local girl Tala (Eva Noblezada, “Luck”), the family assembling the provisions/gift parcel called a balikbayan box for overseas loved ones - beg to be more than just representational shout-outs in an otherwise broadly generalized fractured-family tale.Junior (Wardell) joins his dad on this road trip/visit in Koy’s film, a reflection of his own family and Filipino heritage. ![]() Koy himself seems trapped trying to make his nervous comedic vigor work as character and shtick, but such are the pitfalls of turning one’s stand-up persona into multiplex fodder. Though it provides an excuse for amusing drop-ins by Tiffany Haddish (as a cop ex-girlfriend of Joe’s) and Filipino-American star Lou Diamond Phillips (as himself), the ginned-up endangerment is a flat time-waster when you’d rather see Joe squirming over family dynamics, not cartoon criminals. Yang, “Love Hard”), and money owed to a gangster (Asif Ali, “WandaVision”). Steven Spielberg certainly thought so after seeing one of Koy’s specials, he helped secure him a deal at Amblin for what would become “Easter Sunday” (which has a screenplay by Ken Cheng and Kate Angelo), the rare Hollywood film boasting a heavily Filipino-American cast.Ĭhelsea Handler Reveals Upcoming Book Will Spotlight Love Story With Jo Koy, Compares New Show to ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’īut while there’s believable guilt to be mined for comedy in Joe’s sweet, attentive cousin Eugene (Eugene Cordero, “Loki”), who has been lonely Susan’s surrogate son, that area of emotion-laced humor is always subsumed by a nonsensical, dominating action plot involving stolen Manny Pacquiao gloves, a mall-based fence (Jimmy O. Koy, who’s been packing arenas for years with his rabbity energy and humorous windows into family eccentricities and Filipino culture, seemed as natural a fit as any to get some of his act’s lasting characters into a movie. Of course, one doesn’t need to belong to a big Filipino clan like the movie’s onscreen Valencias to grasp that, and it’s almost quaint how that message is articulated for us at the end as some fresh bit of wisdom when, since scene one, relatives in various states of bickering aggravation (father-son, ex-ex, sister-sister, cousin-cousin) have been the comedy’s go-to note.Ī more lasting takeaway from “Easter Sunday” about what’s messy has to do with vehicles for stand-ups trying to break into movies. Inside the corny chaos of the going-back-home lark “Easter Sunday,” starring comedian Jo Koy, is the point that families are messy.
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