A brutal war of genders. Vanessa Bayer’s nameless
protagonist labors over a hot stove while her husband enjoys “the big game.”
Bayer’s efforts to engage her husband, Beck Bennett—“Are we winning?”—meet with
a blunt dismissal. “Come on, Babe,” says Bennett, adjusting his crotch. “Don’t
act like you know what you’re talking about.” The assembled men chuckle at this
fresh witticism; meanwhile, Bayer, alienated even from herself, confides to us
that her husband “is right.” (Bayer conveys the sense that she has just
undergone a lobotomy; the loopy expression on her face clashes wonderfully with
the hell that surrounds her. Repeatedly, she alludes to her “hungry guys,” as
if foreshadowing the role of the docile servant “Donkey” in “War for the Planet
of the Apes.”) Bayer’s sexless, bright-pink cardigan and multicolored plaid
shirt hang off her like rags on a chimp; wherever her mind actually is, it’s
far, far from the shell of a woman that we see in this suburban kitchen. Her
mind is in another universe.
Then comes Sabine. A story begins when a stranger arrives in
town. Chic, Kakfa-reading, French-speaking Kristen Stewart, with her tattoos
and her disheveled Kate Moss hair, beautifully underplays this role. We are
caught, suddenly, in a love triangle. Bennett continues to grunt from his
couch: “What are you two doing—like, are you making out back there?” Sabine
asks Bayer’s name—and, in the skit’s greatest line, Bayer confesses that she
has “never had one.” (I love that Sabine does not register the weirdness of
this line. A lesser actor—say, Anne Hathaway—would almost certainly choose to
underline this moment, which does not need underlining. In the
bizarre-French-film-universe of Stewart/Sabine, a woman’s namelessness is
simply another tragedy, another part of the sadness of daily life.) Bayer makes
one last gesture toward her husband—“I’ve gotta feed my hungry guys”—but Sabine
shuts this down: “What are you hungry for?” And then, the climax: Bayer
has made her romantic decision. Like Tilda Swinton in “I Am Love,” Bayer is
helpless before her new friend. The two engage in erotic sketching (with a
Totino as a prop), kitchen-sink friskiness (which evokes thoughts of “Fatal
Attraction”), and some French- and English-language soul-baring (“Before you, I
had only my kitchen and my Totinos; now, you are my Totino”). All this
occurs just feet from Mr. Bennett, whose patience and manhood are mightily
taxed—and we all pump a fist for feminism as the lights fade to black.
I have watched this clip maybe a trillion times. It doesn’t
really need much explanation. I guess I just want to be sure that you note the
weird, sexual fumbling of the Totinos on the tray shortly after Sabine arrives;
the fully relaxed film-goddess aura that Stewart contributes; and especially
the greasy-salt residue that Sabine creates as she runs the Totino across her
own porcelain skin. I also want to praise the Bayer/Bennett chemistry—memorably
put to use years earlier, in the skit where Bayer falls very, very slowly for
Kyle Moody. (“Oh, gosh! That’s poop in my underwear! I guess we’re two poops in
a pod!” And Bennett, brutishly interrupting this shy moment: “Hey, do you want
to come to my apartment and have sex with me?” Bennett’s Neanderthal act is
among SNL’s major assets; SNL ought to do all it can to make sure that Mr.
Bennett sticks around.) Lastly, Ms. Bayer is leaving SNL—and, recently, she
surprised everyone by scoring an Emmy Award nomination, right alongside her
glitzier cast-mate, Kate McKinnon. I’m delighted by this news (though not by
Bayer’s SNL departure). In any case, long live VB!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4kpVO56OBU
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