Extract (2009)

Mike Judge’s film about the owner of a flavor-extract company (Jason Bateman) who contemplates having and affair with an attractive employee (Mila Kunis) as release from his largely sexless marriage to Kristen Wiig. Perhaps Judge’s subtlest comedy, its very lite and dry, but not all that funny. We’ve seen everything here before, Bateman as the boss can’t help but remind us of the superior Arrested Development, and Kunis has little to do as a maybe 2 note character. I was impressed with a couple of Wiig’s scenes towards the end of the picture however. Kristen Wiig is very talented at over the top character bits, in fact I’d say that she’s the most talented women to come out of Saturday Night Live since Tina Fay. Here though Wiig is both funny and acting, not just hamming, she plays her character very straight and it’s a treat to watch, she and Bateman have a workable chemistry but its not explored in much depth. In short this film makes me want to see Kristin Wiig in a drama, that however is a different, yet to be produced movie, while Extract remains mostly weak, and not something I’d want to see again. Not Recommended.