Butter [DVD]

Features

• Type: DVD
• Studio: The Weinstein Company
• Language(s): english
• Subtitle(s): english, french
• Director(s): Jim Field Smith
• Actor(s): Jennifer Garner, Ashley Greene, Hugh Jackman, Olivia Wilde

Butter follows an ambitious woman (Jennifer Garner) who is married to Iowa's reigning butter sculpting champ (Ty Burrell) but decides to enter the race on her own when he retires. She's the shoo-in until an adopted young black girl (Yara Shahidi) discovers she has an uncanny talent for butter-carving and becomes a late-breaking favorite. Butter is a quirky film that sort of works as a straight-up comedy, and sort of works as the satire it seems intended to be. What helps propel Butter forward and engage the audience is the first-rate cast. Jennifer Garner and Ty Burrell play Iowans Laura and Bob, whose lives have centered on the very Midwestern phenomenon of butter sculpture. Bob's been having an affair with a cheeky stripper, Brooke (Olivia Wilde), who's dying to figure out a way to go public with her affections for Laura's husband. Enter the annual butter-sculpting contest. Bob's decided to retire; Laura wants to carry on his tradition; Brooke wants to show up to cause emotional carnage. Then Destiny arrives. Destiny (Yara Shahidi) is an orphaned African-American girl and the foster child of well-meaning Ethan and Julie (Rob Corddry and Alicia Silverstone) and who has an almost unbelievable gift for, you guessed it, butter sculpture. What happens at the contest and in the small Iowa suburb is both a fascinating look at people's unusual obsessions and a satire of those obsessions. If Butter falls short of being in the league of Election or Little Miss Sunshine, it is still enjoyable for what it is--an ensemble cast clearly having a great time playing with one another, and playing in their food. It's a small buttery gem. -- A.T. Hurley