I Admit, I Was Wrong

WARNING: Although I did my best to avoid too many plot spoilers in this post, I was unable to avoid spoiling quite a few of the better jokes. So if you still want to see "Pitch Perfect", don't read this.

As I read the Rotten Tomatoes description of "Pitch Perfect", I sighed thinking that it would be another Glee ripoff that's trying to cash in on the recent popularity of shows relating to music. But while the plot itself isn't exactly revolutionary, I found that I really enjoyed this movie for two reason. One, it's one of the funniest mainstream movies I've seen in a long time and second, they made several cinematographic/scene choices that I found pleasing.
The first choice I noticed was that they did not show the cliche "announcing the winner" scene. Rather than use this championship as sort of a cheap way to build tension, that scene was skipped right over. For me, this helped place the emphasis of the movie not on the championship, but on the characters. The triumph was not the Bellas winning the championship, it was Aubrey learning to lose control, Beca learning to take control and finally, the group of girls that made up the Bellas learning to work together and organically to make music. If the crowning of the champion had been shown, it would have removed some of the character emphasis, replacing it instead with a sort of "everything is perfect at the end" cheap feel that I would have found very unsatisfying. The second choice (probably a directorial choice, but I'm no film expert) was the choice to end without wrapping everything perfectly up. The only romantic conclusion was Beca and Jesse and the whole rivalry with the Treblemakers was completely unresolved. I like it when a movie does this though, it allows a certain amount of imagination on the side of the watcher. It also just feels more realistic. In life, not everything ends absolutely perfectly. At least something small goes wrong, and this kind of ending allows for that.
Finally, the comedy. My low expectations were preparing me for a slew of sarcastic one-liners that would fall right out of my head the instant I left the theater. What I got was a mix of language, visual, and verbal humor that was occasionally shocking and always very funny. There were a fair amount of one-liners, but they were generally pretty original and good to hold you over until the next serious joke. The character Fat Amy had me falling out of my seat from the get-go, starting with her bit about matching a pitch all the way through her almost constant sarcastic commentary. I have to say though, my favorite character from a comedy point of view was the Chinese girl, Lily. Her running joke was that she said everything incredibly quietly. The thing is, some of her lines could have fit in a horror movie, if they were delivered in the right tone. For example, my favorite line of hers came when all the Bellas were telling each other one fact about themselves that no one knew. Lily's line? "I ate my twin in the womb." The absurdity of that line almost reminded me of some of the weirder British humor that came from the likes of Monty Python.
This movie really renewed my faith in modern filmmaking, showing that it is still possible for a big-name movie to be quirky, powerful and hysterically absurd.