Comedy concert films, once a movie theater staple, are a rare thing these days. Unless they're package deals (The Original Kings of Comedy, Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie) or driven by cult figures (Margaret Cho's extensive series of films), live comedy movies just don't make sense on the big screen. They're rarely particularly cinematic and far better suited to home viewing on DVD players. With her new concert film, Jesus is Magic, comic Sarah Silverman does her best to shake up the genre, with questionable results.
Most of the recent press on Silverman has focused on her often controversial brand of humor, tackling ethnic and gender stereotypes in a head-on, sometimes off-putting way, challenging ideas about what's acceptable for a white comedian from a middle-class background to say. But Jesus is Magic finds Silverman challenging more than just stand-up conventions, as she frames the film with a plot about her friends (played by her sister Laura Silverman and fellow comic Brian Posehn) whose fabulous lives she attempts to one-up by performing her concert routine.
The jokes are also broken up with sketches and musical numbers, giving the film a slightly experimental feel that is admirable in its effort, if not its execution. Every time Silverman gets going on a promising tack, the movie pauses for a momentum-killing diversion. During the 45 minutes or so that Silverman's doing her routine, the movie is hilarious and biting, as the comedian tackles such humorous topics as rape, the Holocaust and 9/11.
What's disarming about Silverman's comedy is the way she barrels into these touchy subjects with her sweet, faux-naïve tone, and unlike some comics who tackle sensitive material, she doesn't offset her jokes with backpedaling sentiment. She plays with the expectations of herself as a nice Jewish girl, and much of her humor comes from the incongruity between the way she looks and the things she says.
Unlike most hipster comedians, Silverman isn't pushing a liberal social agenda nor commenting directly on politics and current events. But she's often thought-provoking because she pushes audiences to ponder their pre-conceived notions. It's unfortunate the movie buries such trenchant and funny material under so many extraneous diversions.