Cho must go on

>> I'm the One That I Want is Margaret Cho's comic catharsis

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

For the first third at least, I'm the One That I Want remains in standard stand-up mode. A big, hometown Frisco crowd, flashy lights and velvet curtains and all. Comedian Margaret Cho ambles through a series of loosely related topics, fires off the zingers, mugs and grimaces. A proud fag hag, she dedicates most of this stretch to her gay constituency.

But then--and this is rare in the live-comedy movie game--Cho starts to build a structure. You know, like a narrative. She broaches the topic of her short-lived sitcom All-American Girl, the first to star an Asian-American cast, and it's the tears of a clown all the way from there.

Twenty-three at the time, Cho was suckerpunched pretty much right off the bat. Her producer called to tell her "the network is concerned with the fullness of your face," which is either Korean-baiting or weight-watchdogging, take your pick. Diets lead to pills lead to the sauce--oooooh, what a mess.

No, wait, it gets worse. Asian-American audiences, apparently, weren't uniformly pleased with All-American Girl--Cho recalls a 12-year-old girl's letter to a Korean-language newspaper, claiming the show made her feel "deep shame." That's gotta hurt. Everybody-Else Americans, meanwhile, just thought the show was boring.

No, wait, it only gets worse from there. And Cho's not one to spare the gory details.

The Hollywood horror stories are broken up by Cho's favourite riff, extended imitations of her mother's phone messages. As we become familiar with her mom's character, these routines become increasingly funny and, ultimately, very touching. There's pathos going on here, sure, but Cho hits the brakes just short of the maudlin.

It's not really clear how Cho made the leap from the def-con four Bukowski-etta she'd become to the self-assured lady o' laffs we see on the screen--not a word about chakra-stacking or herbal snake-oil. She just plain got her shit together, and can joke about it now--confidently enough to sustain this film.

I'm the One That I Want opens Friday, May 11 at Cinéma du Parc