Ashley Jones Is Perfectly Normal

Life isn't about being perfect. Or normal. Or perfectly normal. Just ask Ashley Jones. After waking up with a bizarre, yet hilarious case of "foreign accent syndrome", our heroine embarks upon a strangely-relatable quest for happiness and self-worth. Everyone is different and thus, everyone has their own version of normal. And that version of normal is what adds color and joy to our lives. It's what makes us valuable in a world that pressures us to bland in and play it safe. Oh, I meant "blend".

Writer Kevin Stock and Director Thomas Bangert present a comedy that will elicit both laughter and contemplation from their audience. And Hana Yuka Sano's performance as Ashley is charming, yet brilliantly complex.

From Ashley's strange "malady" to meeting a 500,000 year old woman, to bantering with the sassy narrator (also voiced by Stock), this film is far from normal. It's different. And that's what makes it so wonderful.

Ashley Jones is Perfectly Normal is a movie about accepting what makes you different and what others may see as flaws, and flourishing despite all of the obstacles that may arise because of those differences. The tasteful race humor and moments of elegant writing bring a relatability desperately needed for a film such as this to work. Despite stumbling through pacing and formatting at some points, Ashley Jones is Perfectly Normal manages to craft an enjoyable family experience that both entertains and presents an important theme.

We found this movie on Amazon streaming. The trailer looked very interesting. My wife lasted about 15 minutes, it was too quirky for her. I stuck with it and enjoyed it. Some scenes, like the table in the restaurant were perfectly symmetrical, the filming and some of the dialog reminded me of some scenes in Wes Anderson movies.

The star is Hana Yuka Sano as Ashley Jones, a perfectly normal California TV reporter, married to a perfectly normal man, every week for six years they ate at the same restaurant, seated at the same table, and he always had a tenderloin cooked medium with three potatoes. She always had pasta with marinara, no meatballs.

All this 'normalcy' (or is it 'normality'?) is to set up the rest of the movie. One morning Ashley wakes up without her usual California accent, instead she has a Japanese accent, for no reason. Things happen as a result, her husband leaves, her job is in jeopardy, she is self-conscious about her condition. (There is a real condition, 'foreign accent syndrome', commonly caused by a sudden damage to the brain.)

So the quirky story has one aim, that is to accept yourself and if life gives you surprises just go with them. I didn't have much success finding anything about Hana Yuka Sano but it appears that she is a Japanese-American actress, so her 'foreign' accent is probably pretty real. If you look closely at her mouth movements when speaking in California accent you see a slight lack of synchronization, and in the end credits, another voice actress is credited with Ashley's California accent. Clever film making.

I disliked this film. I read a description of it prior to watching it but still did not get it even with these hints. Most of the acting was not good. The lead actress was okay. I wonder whether I am unsophisticated or something when others lauded this film and I hated it. It is like someone gushing over a piece of abstract art because others gushed. I will gush if I am moved, however, there was no movement here. Finally, I don't get the significance of the 500,000 year old woman or the Japanese accent malady to the plot. Too weird.

Or Pushing Daisies, or The Crazy Ex Girlfriend.

The entire time I was watching the movie, I couldn't help but to think about those 3 references. Unfortunately, we are faaaar away from this level, for the following reasons:

• The acting is terrible, so much so that the main actress sometimes forget to act like the condition she has.

• The storyline makes absolutely no sense- well actually there is none from the moment she has her diagnosis.

• It is not cute, nor funny, or teaching you anything, or making you think about anything.

• The scenes where she is imagining things (hello crazy ex girlfriends fans) are too long, too lousy, then end up being the reality...? They lost me more than once on those stuff.

I have watched it a few days ago and I am still sitting here, wondering: what was this movie about? If you are adventurous, go watch and find out. If not, please spare yourself 90 minutes of your life time.