Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution movie review

'Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic' doesn't rise to the comic's talent

By PHIL KLOER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Watch out, or that Sarah Silverman juggernaut will roll right over your foot.

Rolling Stone bills the comic as the "Funniest Woman in America," Comedy Central has done a pilot with her for a possible series, and she stole the dirty-joke documentary "The Aristocrats" from a lot of better-known comedians.

Roadside Attractions

'Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic'

The verdict: More Andrew "Dice" Clay than Richard Pryor.

Director: Liam Lynch
Starring: Sarah Silverman, Bob Odenkirk, Brian Posehn, Laura Silverman, La'vin Kiyano
Run time: 72 minutes
Release date: Nov. 11, 2005
Rating: Not rated; contains extremely graphic profanity and sexual talk.
See showtimes

Backstage with Silverman
Film critic Hap Erstein explores a stand-up comedian who never pulls her punches.

On the web
Official movie site

She's definitely the Zeitgeist Girl of the moment, for two reasons that work together. First, she's hot, but in an almost attainable way, rather than a Jessica Alba way. Second, she's nasty. Much of her comedy is about exploring taboo territory — AIDS, rape, the Holocaust, porn, Sept. 11, race, outre sex — and the combination of this nice Jewish girl (her characterization) saying this really filthy stuff is just so delightfully jarring that it's irresistible to those on the cutting edge of transgressive culture.

Sample line, one of the few that can be printed in a family newspaper: "I was raped by a doctor. Which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl." Hence the juggernaut.

We can accept that Sarah Silverman is hot, nasty and funny, and still think her feature film, "Jesus Is Magic," is disappointing, however.

First, it's barely over an hour. Second, even at barely over an hour, it feels padded out. Basically, it's a stand-up gig she did last year in Los Angeles, but only about 40-plus minutes of that makes it into the movie. The rest is little sketches about her life that are almost embarrassingly bad at times, and some musical numbers that have their moments but are inconsistent. She sings a bouncin' little ditty called "You're Gonna Die Soon" in a nursing home, for example.

Silverman definitely has something going for her, but "Jesus Is Magic" is a very poor way to get it across, even to an audience that is already hip to what she's doing. There are a number of wonderfully wicked lines, but overall the movie feels slack and self-indulgent, more of a decent HBO special that's being asked to do more than it can.