In the popular imagination, it goes without saying that siblings will not get along. There’s too much buried resentment and pain over shared history.
The comedy “Addicted to Fresno” takes this cinematic assumption and uses it explore some truly dark territory. But while director Jamie Babbit, who cut her teeth on indie comedies, is an equal-opportunity offender, some jokes land better than others. Still, strong lead performances and an energetic supporting cast elevate the uneven material.
Shannon (Judy Greer) and Martha (Natasha Lyonne) are sisters. After Shannon, a former schoolteacher whose life is in shambles because of a sex addiction, moves in with her younger sister, the two begin working together as hotel maids.
Sullen and articulate, Shannon lashes out frequently; her rebellion usually comes in the form of meaningless sex, either with her therapist (an underused Ron Livingston) or with strangers. Martha, on the other hand, is accommodating to a fault, putting her sister’s needs above her own.
When Shannon picks up the hotel’s resident pervert (Jon Daly) and Martha catches them in the act, Shannon lies and says she’s being raped. After Martha attacks him, the sisters have a corpse on their hands.
With a mixture of pluck and incompetence, they try to get rid of the body, but two pet cemetery owners (Fred Armisen and Alison Tolman) end up blackmailing them. This forces Shannon and Martha to become criminal conspirators; their first instinct is to rob a sex shop, leading to a hilariously protracted gag involving purple dildos. In between ill-conceived capers, the sibling comedy somehow finds time for romantic subplots.
Working from a script by Karey Dornetto, a veteran of offbeat television comedy, Babbit takes transgressive themes and twists them to fit the mold of a character-driven comedy. If there is brutal honesty about Shannon’s addiction, “Fresno” sometimes seems to be simply checking off a list of things that make mainstream audiences uncomfortable. Unsurprisingly, this kitchen-sink approach doesn’t always work: Shannon has falsely accused a man of sexual assault, after all.
The script juxtaposes character moments with bizarre comic set-pieces. In one sublime sequence, for instance, Shannon crashes a bar mitzvah where the guest of honor celebrates with a profane hip-hop performance. Then there are Shannon’s Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings. At one of them, we’re treated to an understated Kumail Nanjiani discussing his fall off the wagon with a litany of four-letter words.
Greer steals the show in a role that mixes smarts, bad behavior and reserves of pain. Predictably, she and Martha revisit some long-dormant crisis, yet to Dornetto’s credit, she doesn’t let Shannon off the hook. Sex addiction notwithstanding, Shannon is also a criminal, and the film’s final moments feel more like a reckoning than one might expect from similar indie fare.
