By the end of Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic
the comedian has riffed on the Holocaust, Sept. 11, AIDS, rape and every single racial stereotype imaginable. posting bail somewhere is a testament to how she has honed her risky craft, and Magic - a concert movie interspersed with music videos and a frame story about her devising the idea for a show on the spot - is as much an examination of why her caustic brand of comedy works as it is, well, the funniest movie of 2005.
Funny in a safe, fart-joke-and-slapstick kind of way? Absolutely not. Silverman explores the aforementioned taboos by using them as fodder for her comedy, and the results are as shockingly hilarious as they are potentially deeply offensive. No one and nothing is off-limits, including Martin Luther King Jr. In an open letter to the civil rights leader, Silverman explains that, well, she had a dream, too.
Many of Silverman's asides and jokes arguably cross a line, but much like The Aristocrats her act is an interesting test of what strikes nerves and what doesn't. Is it too early for Silverman to argue that American Airlines should boost its advertising campaign by the slogan, First Through the Towers? That's for you to decide.
Taboo or not, Silverman is a brilliant performer. Her jokes carry not only a punch line, but subtle asides that are just as hilarious. And not only does she understand how language and timing within and between jokes is crucial, but she has a strange logic that can turn a nonsensical statement into something entirely unexpected. Completely casually, she informs her audience that her nieces are ages 9 and 11. Her brother made them those ages to commemorate Sept. 11, she adds.
There is a deeper current that runs through Silverman's comedy that, I believe, rationalizes much of her humor. Silverman is not standing before her audience, or on screen, as herself. Part of her shtick is that she is not only hopelessly vain and self-centered but apparently oblivious to why what she is saying is risqu+ she says at one point).
This point of view makes her comedy a success, but the structure of the movie is its gaping flaw. An opening musical number, during which Silverman frets over doing her show, is charming and over-the-top. But nearly every other moment when Magic steps away from Silverman on stage - whether she's singing a politically incorrect love song or crooning to a group of retirement center residents that they will all die soon - is painfully unfunny. At times, the editing of Silverman's stage material lurches, too, moving from joke to joke in a way that ruins the flow she probably maintained onstage.
Flaws aside, Silverman's stand-up shines through those unwelcome detours, and she is able to make the best of it, in the same sense of her own inspirational advice: When God gives you AIDS ... You make lemonAIDS.
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Sarah Silverman stars in the offbeat comedy Jesus Is Magic
her taped standup routine interspersed with other clips. The film is far from politically correct, including funny songs and provocative humor.
