Support the Girls is a workplace comedy for anyone who has spent a shift holding a bad day together for other people.
Regina Hall plays Lisa, the manager of Double Whammies, a Hooters-style sports bar, across one chaotic day of staff crises, a broken security camera and a boss who barely shows up. Andrew Bujalski, once labeled the godfather of mumblecore for his loose, dialogue-driven early features, brings that same naturalistic ear to a more polished production here, letting scenes play out in overlapping, unforced conversation rather than tidy setups and punchlines.
The film has stayed under the radar despite unusually strong critical notices, partly because its premise, a comedy set at a breastaurant, sounds like exactly the kind of film it refuses to be. Regina Hall's performance as Lisa was the toast of critics' groups in the year of its release: she became the first Black actress to win the New York Film Critics Circle's Best Actress award in the group's history, and also took the Gotham Award, yet the film collected no major awards-season attention beyond critics' prizes.
What sets Support the Girls apart is how it uses its setting. Rather than playing the uniforms and the concept for cheap laughs or exploitation, Bujalski treats Double Whammies as a real workplace, using it to examine class, labor and the quiet compromises of service work. Lisa is squeezed from above by an absent, capricious owner and from below by her responsibility to protect a staff of young women, and Hall communicates that pressure through exhaustion and generosity held in the same expression. The film's ending resists a tidy resolution, choosing a moment of frustration over a feel-good wrap-up.
Support the Girls runs a lean 91 minutes and rewards a single focused watch rather than background viewing, since its comedy lives in small exchanges that are easy to miss if attention drifts. For anyone assembling a list of overlooked American comedies from the last decade, this is a title to save and return to.
