Our movie today is a 2021 crime/comedy with a cast of prominent female actors including
Allison Janney, Mila Kunis, Ellen Barkin and Awkwafina (love her!)
Alison Janey plays Sue Buttons who is the definition of a middle-aged door mat wife. Sue is
never rude, wears sensible clothes and shoes, drives a boring economical car, works as a
telemarketer and is invisible to all around her. She is trying to improve herself, as she listens
and repeats daily affirmations “I am important” “I matter” but it really hasn’t been working.
Everything comes to a head on Sue’s birthday. She purchases her own birthday cake, with her
name misspelled “Suc”, a birthday cake is presented to a co-worker, but Sue’s birthday is not
recognized, but nothing compares to Sue walking in on her husband having sex with his
mistress. Husband Karl takes the easy way out and has a heart attack and dies right there in the
hotel room. Sue finally erupts and screams the mistress out of the hotel, and after some
thought she digs a hole in the hotel playground and buries Karl and all his belongings beneath
the swings.
This first step leads to a long string of lies and embellishments that evolve into a media storm of
the decade.
Sue obviously didn’t have a real plan when she decided to bury her husband. Later, while
watching the local news embrace the story of a missing girl, her grieving parents center stage
the wheels begin spinning. She doesn’t give a thought about the missing girl but is fixated on
the attention and love sent to the grieving parents. Sue wants that attention; she wants the
public to care about her and her plan develops.
The next day she reports her husband missing, which doesn’t really get the response of “oh
poor Sue” that she was hoping for. Luckily for her, she has a half sister who is a reporter at a
local news channel who is ambitious enough to see an opportunity to shine a light on her own
missing person story.
However, a missing husband does not have the same media draw as a missing child. That is
until Sue grows the story, saying her husband knew who kidnapped the child and that is why he
himself was kidnapped. Now, that’s media gold, and Sue is basking in her expanded 15 minutes
of fame.
What Sue doesn’t know, is husband Karl who worked in a bank, was laundering money for the
Asian mob. Karl wanted out, stole the three million dollars he had laundered and was planning
on disappearing with his mistress when he was caught by Sue. Sue didn’t know the overnight
bag she threw into Karl’s playground grave was filled with the Mob’s money.
Then we have Karl’s brother, Pete fresh out of prison and knew Karl was laundering money. He
hears the missing/kidnap story and deducts the Asian mob must have Karl.
At one point the police delve deeply into Sue’s timeline of events, which has ever changing
components, but eventually most police look at Sue as a clueless wall flower wife who could
never pull off a crime let alone murder.
Sue is continuously modifying her story, when backed into a corner, she just adds a new layer,
and it works for her. All because everyone who looks at her, writes her off as never possibly
having the fortitude to commit and cover up a crime.
The first ten minutes of this movie is slow and not engaging at all but wait it out. This is just a
mindless fun movie heavy on one liners and zingers and having a 90% female cast is a breath of
fresh air. There is a large cast of characters, some not necessary. Don’t overthink this and see
the obvious flaws in her plan. But do think of how loneliness shapes what people perceive to
be important.
“Breaking News in Yuba County” is rated C, this is not the type of movie you need to see more
than once, but it’s funny and different which is worth one hundred minutes of my time. In
normal times, this would be a wait for Redbox movie.
As for a beverage, I see Sue as a white wine spritzer type, Rose if she if feeling wild.
