Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Game Night

Comedy is hard, but Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams make it all look so easy. In Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley’s comedic gem Game Night, Bateman and McAdams play a competitive married couple who have been struggling to conceive thanks to Bateman’s feelings of inadequacy compared to his more successful brother (Kyle Chandler). When Chandler arranges to have himself kidnapped as part of a staged murder mystery game night, things go horribly and hilariously awry as Chandler’s own past catches up with him.

Through various twists and turns, many of which you don’t see coming, Bateman, McAdams, Chandler, and the rest of the hilarious ensemble weave through a complex and slow-burn comedy of game players getting in over their head. Billy Magnusson, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kyle Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, and two wonderful cameos provide able support in this most farcical and complex mystery comedy.

Goldstein and Daley don’t follow the Paul Feig model of outrageous humor for the sake of itself. They setup their funniest moments in advance and then slowly explore them, eliminating the rapid fire humor that has been a staple of modern R-rated comedies in recent years. There are dramatic events all around, but when the action pauses and the humor’s allowed to simmer until it boils over in laughs, it proves a most successful brand of hilarity.