Review
Lucas Kavner
HUFFINGTON
09.23.12
scrap humankind entirely so he can open an Asian fusion
restaurant called Sola. Craig is devastated; humans are
his life’s work. So along with his angel-crush, Eliza, Craig
decides to save humanity from God’s wrath by answering one very complicated prayer from God’s endless stack:
They must force two very awkward humans to kiss.
Now, certainly Rich isn’t the only satirist to imagine
the afterlife like this. I found
myself thinking of Defending
Your Life, the 1991 romantic
GOD’S NAME OFTEN
comedy by Albert Brooks. In
RESEMBLES A JOHN
that film, heaven was “JudgHUGHES FILM, COMment City,” made up of allPLETE WITH AWKyou-can-eat buffets, comedy
WARD LOVE, NERD
clubs and bland office buildings, where human beings go
POWER AND KNOWto have their entire lives inING REFERENCES.
spected in a court of law, determining whether they stay
around or go back to Earth.
What Brooks and Rich both realize, however, is that none
of this satire works without a love story at the center. Brooks
gives us Meryl Str eep, and Rich gives us two — Craig’s relationship with co-angel Eliza, and the two earthlings that the
angels must force together, NYU students Sam and Laura.
Rich’s tone is always cinematic, and God’s Name often
resembles a 1980s John Hughes film, complete with awkward love, nerd power and knowing references. His comedy is never anything but spot-on and succinct, continuing
in the vein of his other work, which combines the best of
Douglas Adams and early Woody Allen with the heart of a
classic Neil Simon play.
In God’s Name, we know what’s coming from a mile away,
but who cares? Rich moves us toward a potential apocalypse quickly and with a humor and heart all his own.