Review: 'Stop and Go,' a made-in-Utah comedy, finds approachable humor in the panicky early days of COVID-19
If we’re going to have movies about the COVID-19 pandemic, let them be as funny and as charming as “Stop and Go,” a light and bouncy comedy that shows that talent and chemistry can compensate for zero dollars in the production budget.
Set in March 2020, in the early weeks of the pandemic hitting the United States, this comedy centers on two sisters, Jamie (Whitney Call) and Blake (Mallory Everton), who are trying to maintain their sanity as they’re cooped up in their Albuquerque house, only occasionally going out for groceries — which are, of course, sprayed with Lysol the second they enter the home.
Then Jamie and Blake get a disturbing call from their grandmother (Anne Sward Hansen), who’s in quarantine in her room at her nursing home in eastern Washington. Jamie and Blake want to help Nana, and they don’t trust their sister Erin (Julia Jolley), who also lives in Washington state, but doesn’t take the coronavirus seriously — as evidence by the fact that she and her husband just got on a cruise ship in the middle of a pandemic.
So Jamie and Blake decide they need to go rescue Nana from her nursing home themselves. This leads to a 1,200-mile road trip where various forms of wackiness follow them.
Jamie and Blake turn out to be great company on a cinematic car ride like this, because Call and Everton have such easygoing screen chemistry. Call and Everton — who also wrote the screenplay here — have been friends since they were small children, and they honed their comedy skills in the improv scene around Brigham Young University (improv is apparently BYU’s substitute for not having keggers) and on the BYUtv sketch comedy series “Studio C.” Their byplay takes a bit of time to settle into a rhythm, but it’s confidently funny and surprisingly polished when it kicks into gear.
It’s helpful that Everton is also the movie’s co-director, along with fellow “Studio C” alum Stephen Meek (who’s also Call’s real-life husband), and that all three principals — Call, Everton and Meek — are so in sync, which allows the performers to riff into unexpected directions.
“Stop and Go” captures a particular moment of the pandemic, that period in March 2020 when we were scared and didn’t yet know how much we should be scared. Call and Everton, who bounce funny ideas around like old pros, channel that fear into a hilarious and heartfelt road comedy that feels like it’s arriving just in time.
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‘Stop and Go’
★★★
Opens Friday, October 1, at the Megaplex Theaters at Thanksgiving Point, Lehi. Not rated, but probably PG-13 for thematic elements and mild language. Running time: 80 minutes.