Quibi, the new short-form streaming service available only for mobile devices, has recruited yet another big name star to their ranks this time in the form of Anna Kendrick. She stars in the Quibi original show Dummy with a total of 10 episodes, each less than 10 minutes in length making it a quick and relatively easy show to watch providing you can sit through the story itself.
Dummy is the semi-autobiographical story of the relationship between the show’s writer Cody Heller (played by Kendrick) and Emmy-Award winning tv show writer Dan Harmon (played by Donal Logue). Cody and Dan have an intense and kink-filled sex life (and yes, this is relevant to the story) however Cody is surprised one night to find out that Dan has a sex doll. Despite her best efforts to ‘play it cool’, she seeks out the doll one night to see what it looks like, and this is where the show gets weird: the sex doll comes to life and starts talking to Cody, reflecting her insecurities back to her in the form of sassy and slightly crude conversation. The rest of the show follows the adventures that Cody and the sex doll ‘Barbara’ get up to and the raw personal conversations that Cody has with the doll who begins to reflect her conscience.
To be honest, Dummy feels like the kind of show that is trying to bring up as many sexually taboo topics as possible – from sex dolls to jokes about the #MeToo movement to edgy kinks –it’s kind of up to each viewer to decide whether it’s pushing a line or not. For me, it felt slightly uncomfortable to see Kendrick in such a crude role, as it is fairly different from her usual preppy and clean-cut characters she plays in majority of her films. Dummy seems to discuss a personal side of the relationship that although maybe therapeutic to talk about, also feels like airing out dirty laundry for the sake of a cheap laugh.
The length of the content on Quibi makes it easy to watch and super engaging as the story is condensed to fit in the 10-minute time frame, however, the content of the story still has to be interesting enough to keep people watching and that’s where Dummy falls short. Understanding that Quibi has only just launched and has come out swinging with as many big names as they could fit, Anna Kendrick is sure to pull some fans to the app however Dummy as a show is probably not enough to keep people there. Interesting concept and a show of brutal honestly on the part of writer Cody Heller however it’s not a show I’ll be rewatching anytime soon (even if it only takes an hour).
All 10 episodes of Dummy are now streaming on Quibi.
Rating: 1/5