It’s hard to make a golf comedy without evoking “Caddyshack,” the ribald 1980 classic starring Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, and with its crude humor, farcical innuendo and posh eponymous setting, “The Country Club” certainly warrants the comparison. But the influence the movie more obviously courts is early Wes Anderson, especially his sophomore feature “Rushmore”: The director Fiona Robert (who also co-wrote the film with her sister, Sophia Robert, both of whom star) leans heavily on Anderson’s unmistakable, easily imitated style, using rigidly symmetrical compositions, sudden zooms and a heightened pastel color palette. As if to underscore the similarities, the movie even opens with a handcrafted, pleasantly fastidious title sequence with credits inscribed on tees and golf balls that fairly exudes twee Andersonia.
These visual flourishes, while derivative, are charming and well-realized. The writing, however, has none of Anderson’s wit, tending instead toward a kind of broad and fatuous slapstick that’s closer to “2 Broke Girls” than “The Royal Tenenbaums.”
This story of a pair of working-class teenage interlopers crashing an upper-crust golf tournament has a predictable sitcom rhythm, and features expository monologues of astonishing clumsiness, such as this dud, from the working-class hero Elsa (Sophia Robert) to her sister, Tina (Fiona Robert): “I guess I’m just upset about dad getting laid off. College is so far out of reach now!” The jokes are scarcely better. There is a long, long, unfunny sequence involving flatulence. According to the credits, those noise effects were provided by the comedian Steve Higgins. They were not worth crediting.
The Country Club
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Rent or buy on most major platforms.
