Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Marmalade’ on Hulu, a Goofball Indie Comedy Forcing Us to Remember the ‘90s (Or Else)

Anyone yearning for very very very very very (very!) ’90s pastiche might raise an eyebrow toward Marmalade (now streaming on Hulu), the offbeat writing/directing debut from longtime character actor Keir O’Donnell. OK, maybe there’s some late-’80s stuff here too, since O’Donnell indulges a shot of two prison inmates in bunk beds that’s snatched wholesale from Raising Arizona, and maybe you can justify such brazen thievery in the service of a movie about bank robbery, if you’re feeling generous. Stranger Things’ Joe Keery and Daisy Jones and the Six Emmy nominee Camila Morrone headline, fully entrenched in O’Donnell’s thick, syrupy quirk, which only works for you if you haven’t seen all the movies he’s referencing dozens of times before (he said, having seen the movies he’s referencing dozens of times before).

MARMALADE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: One of the first things we noted about Marmalade is how its score centers on the wobbly warbles of a musical saw, which rather strongly implies, what you are about to see here is utterly ridiculous. And what’s utterly ridiculous is this lead character, Baron (Keery), who says things like “I swear on my hair” in the yokely-dokely drawl of an uncultured dingbat – and that hair is clearly a very shitty wig (shitty on purpose or just shitty, it’s hard to tell). Two minutes in and this movie is already dragging its hand against the grain of the cat’s coat, but continue we must. Baron’s been cuffed and mugshotted and booked and shoved into a cell with his new bunkmate Otis (Aldis Hodge), who calls Baron “blud” at first to intimidate him, but eventually as a term of endearment. It doesn’t take long for the two of them to discuss busting out of this joint, with Baron offering Otis a cool $250k to help him. Otis wants to know how this dip got his hands on a quarter-mil, and thus we flash back as Baron narrates his story.

So: Once upon a time, Baron was just a small-town, working-poor ignoramus delivering mail so he could afford his sick mama Eda’s (Amy Warner) overpriced medicine, which he sticks in a moon pie and hand-feeds to her. Except he gets fired for refusing to cut his hair, which tells us his priorities are way outta wack – I mean, his mom is bedridden on breathing machines and a shade away from the grave, and he won’t go to the damn Supercuts for a trim? Baron lies in the dirt despairing as much as an organism with significant brain-cell deficiencies can despair when an impossible creature rolls up in a shiny blue vintage convertible: Marmalade (Morrone). She’s an impulsive tornado of faux fur and pink hair, all sexy and insane in half-calf cowboy boots. Baron’s mesmerized. “From now,” our idiot tells Otis, “we was inseparatable,” and that’s not a typo, it’s a joke, please laugh!

Of course, Marmalade has no place to stay – she says she’s a former foster-home kid who, say it with me, done R-U-N-N-O-F-T years ago – so Baron takes her home to meet his mother and turn everything turvsy-toppy. She has a solution to the how-we-gonna-afferd-Mama’s-perscripptins problem: “Let’s go rob a bank!” she blurts, then pulls out a pistol that makes the Guns of the Navarone look like a peashooter. Well then. The saw warbles extra goofy and Marmalade laughs like a hyena on nitrous as she and poor dumb ol’ Baron – she calls him “Puppet.” Puppet! – make love and lick ice cream off each other’s faces and plan to knock over the First United Savin’s ‘n’ Loans a few towns over. So, Otis, that’s how he got this bag of money. You in or you out?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Marmalade is a shameless pastiche of Wild at Heart, True Romance and Raising Arizona, with a snatch of Bonnie and Clyde in the patchwork, and an ending with enough rug-pulls you can’t help but remember how you obsessively watched The Usual Suspects a couple dozen times between ’95 and ’99.

Performance Worth Watching: It’s easy to appreciate Hodge’s sturdy straight-man work when so much of the movie around him smacks of try-hardism.

Memorable Dialogue: Sample slice of the overcooked bumpkinisms that make up Baron’s speech: “Dear sweet lord, I pray that you up there and Mama take Marmalade and that little one in your arms today and protect ’em during the stick-up.”

Sex and Skin: Smooching, and silhouettes of Baron and Marmalade commingling. 

Our Take: If Marmalade was a pair of underpants, and you’re thinking about sliding it on, it’ll feel either like silk or sandpaper. There’s no happy medium here. You either love it or slather your nethers with cream to soothe the chafe. Count me in the latter camp, the primary hang-up being O’Donnell parading his influences so predominantly, I was inspired less to hang with this story, more to rewatch some of the most formative films in my cinema-appreciation history. Granted: Marmalade isn’t wholly derivative; in fact it sheds its more look-at-me diversions and flourishes for the final stretch, which trends toward something more endearing and at least slightly more original. But it’s dug itself too deeply in a hole by then, and redemption just wasn’t in the cards.

The first hour is just too exhausting with its uber-quirky score, overbearing and overstyled protagonists, loopy narrative switchbacks and Shakespeare-quoting prison guards – it’s all self-consciously A Bit Much, too much to truly overcome in order to enjoy the myriad, somewhat unpredictable third-act twists that stack up like cold cuts on a Dagwood sandwich. It’s hard to feel the adrenaline rush of young nuts in love when the performances are too OTT looney-toonish for their own good, and the yokel-comedy feels so forcibly written that it splats like wobbly, overfilled water balloons. I appreciate that O’Donnell is riffing on ideas about the nature of storytelling, as he toys with unreliable narrators and uses exaggeration with purpose, although it’s ultimately calculated and derivative. Give Marmalade this, though: I was never bored. But I also wasn’t not annoyed, you know? 

Our Call: This Marmalade ain’t sweet enough. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.