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The tagline on the movie poster is “you’ll laugh till it hurts!” This was literally true. Earlier in the day I ventured too close to a wasps’ nest and was feeling a little tender as I sat down to watch State and Main. Laughing was a painful experience but, its true, this was a funny piece of work from David Mamet. I expected no less.

Now, was this a portrayal of fly-over country as seen by the Coastal Elite? Was it a portrayal of Hollywood-types as imagined by rural America? Is the joke that it’s both?

In a few of its snapshots, we see the experience of the urban, coastal denizen* being set adrift in flyover country – experiences that are probably close enough to the real thing. Flannel-clad retirees suddenly interested in reading Variety cover-to-cover, for example, has probably long been a part of an on-location shoot. The perception of big-name actors as compulsive child-molesters, aided and abetted by the industry, may be exaggerated for humorous effect. If so, it is an exaggeration that rings true to many of us outside the influence of the entertainment industry. It’s also an obvious (even if exaggerated) point well taken by those inside the industry. One can look the other way from the abuses of the industry but I don’t think anyone can, in good faith, deny it.

Other elements are laughably (although not in the right way) out of place. The piece is set in the northern reaches of Vermont but the town manages to be served by the Boston Commuter Rail. It was filmed in Massachusetts and, while all quaint New England towns are assumed to look the same, there is going to be a massive difference in look and feel between a Manchester-by-the-Sea and the real-life Waterford, VT. Hint: the two look almost nothing like each other.

The usual portrayal of flyover classes as rubes who struggle to understand things like modern door locks is partly evident. It is a balance. Are the jokes funny enough to forgive the caricatures? Are the caricatures close enough to forgive their inaccuracies? For everything that it gets wrong about small-town New England, it probably remains one of the better representations thereof that has been brought to the screen.

Anyway, laugh I did (and hurt I did). That’s what counts.

Photo by Davis Sanchez on Pexels.com

*David Mamet is originally from Chicago although he now lives in California. While that makes him far from “coastal,” growing up in Chicago does not make your part of the midwesterm farm culture. Nonetheless, and this is a big part of why I wanted to watch State and Main, Mamet seems to not have swallowed the left-coast kool-aid. It probably makes it hard for him to continue working in Hollywood so I’ll give him what little custom a Netflix rental provides. Also, do any of you want to pronounce his name Mam-may? I do. The name isn’t French, though, it’s Polish.