Butter

In case you’ve seen the trailer for this film and thought to yourself, “Self…this looks hilarious!”, you would be right. Butter is a black comedy from 2011 sporting a solid cast and a strangely heart-warming story about an adopted girl in small town Iowa who discovers her talent for butter carving. Soon she finds herself in a vicious battle for butter-carving supremacy against the town’s hyper-ambitious first lady of carving in their town’s annual contest.


Similar in feel to Best in Show or Little Miss Sunshine, but not nearly as good, Butter is a funny film full of quirky characters and satirical jabs. Though the incisive pokes at powerful women, religious society, racial issues, and sexual behavior sometime fall victim to poor positioning or even crude and offensive handling, Butter still manages to succeed in eliciting several laugh out loud moments.

Beware: the writer doesn’t pull many punches when it comes to language and you most likely will be offended at least once by the action on screen. This came as quite a surprise to me after seeing the trailer, so put on your earmuffs and gird your loins. Don’t get me wrong, this movie is a family film compared to some others out there. It just caught me off guard when juxtaposed against the subject matter and charmingly peculiar preview. (I suppose that was intended.) Grab some popcorn and enjoy!

And don’t forget the butter!