In these dreary times, we can all use more content, more choices in our lives and more uplifting stories. Well, I’m happy to say that we get all of that in “Kimmy Vs the Reverend” the new interactive movie from Netflix and Tina Fey. I guess I missed a season of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt series, which seems important to the start of this movie. I was a bit surprised to see that Kimmy now has a talking puppet backpack, lots of money, two robots, and is getting married to Daniel Radcliffe’s Prince Frederick. This and much more are discussed before that adorable title song even plays, so fear not, they catch you up quick. When Kimmy finds a mysterious Choose Your Own Adventure™ book in her sentient backpack, it raises the possibility that more girls were kidnapped by the Reverend that once held her. Kimmy then decides to try to find and rescue these other kidnapped girls and get back in time for her wedding. Titus comes along and puts his new movie role in jeopardy. While they’re off doing that, the rest of the cast try to keep the wedding on track. That is the whole movie in a nutshell, but hardly the whole story, don’t worry, I wouldn’t do that to you!
Something that was kind of an issue in the “CYOA” books, and now in this interactive movie, is that the price you pay for choice is a somewhat short and simple story in the end. Of course, it all comes down to math. If every choice fanned out into a wholly different story, the book would be 900,000 pages long, and the movie would have started filming 200 years ago and still be in production. Fortunately, the advent of non-linear video has made this a much more fun and rewarding process. The mechanics of the interactive portions are designed to basically keep you on track with the main plot of the movie. The largest detraction from the main plot is on the location of Titus’ movie, where Jacqueline is trying to hide the fact that he hasn’t shown up for filming. The way the two choices here go actually made small differences in some insert bits at the end but not in any meaningful way. There is only one ending, which is filmed in a couple of different ways that are inconsequential to the main story. The interactive bits do one of two things, either they pull Kimmy and Titus (Or Fred and Lillian, or Jaqueline and the film crew) in one direction only to return them back to the main storyline, or the choices result in either literal dead ends or a kind of “Oops you messed up” message from one of the characters, resulting in literally rewinding the movie to the last decision point, where you can only really pick one choice to keep going.
It’s a little disappointing that they couldn’t figure a way to avoid the dead-end bits. It felt cheap, or like the producers never really intended to make a truly free form story. They had a story, they stuck to it, and kind of shimmed some fake options to give you the illusion of choice. If there were, let’s say four or six different endings including some sad ones, then I feel like it would be much more of a ride for the viewer, as there would be real stakes in their choices. This would mean more writing, more shooting, and more editing for sure, but nothing close to what an entire season of a show entails. I imagine the writers and showrunner got scared that this might mess up the canon of their storyline, or drive the budget and workload into the stratosphere. However, I feel like in the whacky world they have created, new seasons could just choose one of the storylines (the happiest, Kimmiest one I’d assume) and continue on from there without issue, and also, it’s Netflix, they have more money than anyone these days, they can afford the risk. Se la vie.
Ultimately this is all semantics, as none of this detracted from my enjoyment of the film, which is basically an extended episode of the series. The cast is all comfortable in their roles, and the zany universe the show lives in is intact and cohesive. It is a fun place to be, and there are lots of fun winks and nods to the underlying darker story of Kimmy’s kidnapping, as well as lots of fun cameo roles. So if you’re down and need a pick me up, or up and want to keep it going, “Kimmy Vs the Reverend” is a good cheery time. Since we’re all locked down, and not doing much else, it’s fun to go through every option and see what you get. Overall, I’d recommend this, and encourage more of these to get made, but with a little more effort in the actual amount of choices that you get.
Quick Scan
Essentially an extended episode of the show, “Kimmy Vs the Reverend” is an enjoyable escape, though the interactive aspect is not explored to its fullest.