The unlikely 2011 movie Rashida Jones called “really, really fucked up”
She might have been a very recognisable onscreen presence in some of the best comedies over the last couple of decades, but it’s actually off-screen that actor Rashida Jones has done some of her best work in years.
That’s because she, along with writer Will McCormack, is responsible for penning the screenplay of The Invite, the Olivia Wilde-directed masterpiece that ranks as one of the finest films I’ve personally seen in some time and is likely to be duking it out with The Odyssey when awards season rolls around next March.
The premise may have been based on an existing film, 2020’s The People Upstairs, but that was a Spanish-language movie, and so what Jones and McCormack did was essentially write one of the most engrossing cinema scripts in some time from scratch, a kind of Gen X retelling of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, only with discussions about butt plugs and frighteningly expensive cheeseboards.
Although Wilde will get many gongs, deservedly so, for her brilliant direction and acting in the film, it really is all about the dialogue, which snaps and crackles and prods and pokes and above all delivers an inherent understanding of what it is like to be in a long-term relationship with kids, but still harbour a modicum of adventure and optimism.
Perhaps Jones was thematically inspired by a film she made back in 2010 called Monogamy, where she played one half of a Brooklyn couple going through some issues that was something of a departure for someone who had mainly focused on comedy up to that point, with a regular role in The Office and Parks and Recreation, plus the Paul Rudd comedy I Love You, Man and a cameo in Justin Timberlake’s Friends with Benefits in 2011. The same year found her involved in a furry reboot of a 1970s classic that worked far better than perhaps it should have done, again thanks to the writers involved.
The Muppets was the 2011 comedy musical created by Jason Segel, who had risen to fame thanks to Forgetting Sarah Marshall and How I Met Your Mother, and it brought a completely new audience to the joys of Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo and the rest of the gang. Jones played a TV executive in the movie, which told the story of Kermit trying to get the erstwhile puppet group back together in order to save a popular theatre, but due to her own personal love of the fuzzy group, she found the experience a challenge, to say the least.
She told Time Out about her time working on the film, recalling, “It was really, really fucked up in, like, a really good way. I kind of understand now why people freak out when they see celebrities that they love, because that’s how I feel about every single Muppet. My child brain was so confused by the whole thing. I oftentimes would speak to Kermit and almost forget [Steve Whitmire, who voices Kermit] was even there.”
Despite her obvious admiration for the flappy-armed green frog, however, she wasn’t tempted to take things further, adding, “No. Listen, it’s Kermit and Piggy forever, you know what I mean? I’m not getting anywhere near that. He’s cute, I mean, he definitely flirted with me, but no. Kermit and Piggy forever”.
On release, The Muppets was a big success, grossing $171million at the box office and picking up an Academy Award for ‘Best Original Song’ thanks to ‘Man or Muppet’, which was written by Flight of the Conchords’ Brett McKenzie. Jones, meanwhile, has moved on to another project about what goes on behind bedroom doors, having wrapped on the next Lena Dunham-directed film, Good Sex, alongside Mark Ruffalo and Natalie Portman.
