Film Review – The Deb

Actress Rebel Wilson makes her directorial debut with “The Deb,” in charge of guiding a 2022 Australian musical to the screen. A thespian of debatable appeal, Wilson takes more responsibility this time around, overseeing the exaggerated energy of the material, which is a riff on “Mean Girls,” which also enjoyed a musical adaptation. The Aussie setting is appealing, helping to bring a different atmosphere to the endeavor, but the writing is as routine as it gets, with Hannah Reilly adapting her own book, challenged to transform characters built for the stage into cinematic personalities. “The Deb” is enthusiastically performed at times, but Wilson has difficulty managing surges of obnoxiousness and predictability. The music video construction of musical numbers is also a dispiriting, limiting the natural joy of performance the production is counting on to help reach viewers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com