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Moviegoers never caught on to its brilliance, but
Brain Candy is a smart, outrageously inventive vehicle for Canada's most irreverent comedy troupe. The subtly subversive plot is about society's ongoing search for the perfect "happy drug," and the Kids inhabit a multitude of costumes and characters as they celebrate--and lament--the invention of "Gleemonex," the ultimate antidepressant, which locks users into their happiest memories... and subsequently renders them comatose. No worries for the Roritor Chemical Company; they don't care much about side effects! With rampant riffs on heavy-metal doomsayers, closeted gay husbands (resulting in Scott Thompson's hilarious coming-out musical), blissed-out grandmothers, and all varieties of corporate greed-mongers,
Brain Candy is almost too hip for its own good, combining Pythonesque ingenuity with cutting social satire. As a comedic experiment it's hit-and-miss, but with the cross-dressing Kids running the show, it's likely to leave you laughing out loud.
--Jeff Shannon
From The New Yorker
After five years on television, the great cross-dressing Canadian troupe gets its own movie and runs with it, to greater effect than such recent Lorne Michaels protégés as Chris Farley and Adam Sandler have. The plot, about a Prozac-like pill that can make everyone happy, allows the five sketchmeisters to populate the screen in a multiple-role heaven that would stir Alec Guinness's heart. Not all of the pieces work, but a few are truly inspired. (Scott Thompson's out-of-the-closet number-an homage to Gene Kelly, shot in Stanley Donen color and complete with suburban lawn sprinklers-is a real jaw-dropper.) The Kids haven't yet mastered the ebb-and-flow rhythms of Monty Python, but, more often than not, they make their funny points. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker