"Win or lose, we'll do it together."
Jenny: I'm helping you get him back while also seizing your destiny!
Anne: Oh my god, destiny isn't real!
Jenny: Yes it is! We all have a purpose. We just need to find it.
Anne: Oh my god, destiny isn't real!
Jenny: Yes it is! We all have a purpose. We just need to find it.
Quiz Lady is an American comedy film directed by Jessica Yu. It stars Awkwafina and Sandra Oh as sisters Anne and Jenny Yum, who are different as night and day. Anne is a tight-laced and awkward accountant who has been obsessed with fictional quiz show Can't Stop the Quiz since childhood, while Jenny is her flighty older sister who has never held down a job. When their gambling addict of a mother leaves them with $80,000 in debt to a local gang whose boss kidnaps their beloved pug as ransom, Anne and Jenny are forced to join forces and use Anne's quiz knowledge to get their dog back and pay off their debts.
The film also stars Will Ferrell as Quiz host Terry McTeer, Holland Taylor as Anne's neighbor Francine, and Jason Schwartzman as longtime Quiz defending champ Ron Heacock. It was released on Hulu in November 2023.
Tropes:
- Asian Drivers: The stereotype of Asians being unable to drive is the basis of a joke when Asian-American sisters Anne and Jenny fight over the steering wheel and nearly crash into a small truck. The driver shouts that they can't drive. Jenny, always one to put her foot in her mouth, yells back that he's racist. He leans out the window to give them the stink-eye...and also turns out to be Asian.Jenny: ...Oh, hi!
- Bait-and-Switch Sentiment: When Anne is seemingly having a heartfelt moment with her Cranky Neighbor:Francine: I've met a lot of people and I've only liked one.
Anne: ...Was it me?
Francine: No. You get too much mail. - Celebrity Crush: Played for laughs. Francine adores Paul Reubens, except she thinks he's Alan Cumming. When they meet Reubens at the end of the film, Anne gets him to pretend to be Cumming to make Francine happy.
- Cranky Neighbor: Francine, Anne's elderly neighbor, is always complaining about mail delivery not being done to her expectations and looks down on Jenny. When giving Anne life advice, she bluntly tells the latter that happiness doesn't exist.
- Different in Every Episode: In-Universe, Terry wears a different bow tie for every episode of Can't Stop the Quiz he hosts. Anne is surprised to learn they are on full display at the studio, and Terry can even point to one and tell her a memorable contestant from that episode.
- Empty Fridge, Empty Life: The socially awkward Anne has nothing in her pantry except bags of popcorn and pasta. Jenny disgustedly comments that "it's like a robot's house".
- Even Evil Has Standards: Ken may be the ruthless leader of the local Tongs, but he cares deeply for the dogs he abducts for ransom and is appalled that their owners never come back to claim them. In fact, he's going broke trying to care for them all.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Anne is the Responsible to her older sister Jenny's Foolish — while Jenny bounces from career to career, Anne has held down a steady but boring job, pays for their mother's care, and lends Jenny money. She considers Jenny a Disappointing Older Sibling for this reason.
- Frivolous Lawsuit: Jenny is suing a restaurant chain for choking on a fish bone. She has won the lawsuit for an obscene amount of money.
- The Gambling Addict: Anne and Jenny's unseen mother is characterized mostly by being way too into gambling to be a good parent; during the A Minor Kidroduction scene she's stomping out to go to a casino, when she goes missing from her care facility the first instinct is to check local casinos, and naturally she's gone off to Macau to gamble some more. She's even left her kids with her gambling debts.
- Instant Web Hit: Jenny posts a video of Anne effortlessly answering every question of "Can't Stop the Quiz'' online. By the next morning it's all over social media and Anne has gained local notoriety, to her despair.
- Intoxication Ensues: In an attempt to get her uptight sister to relax ahead of her game show audition, Jenny gives her some drugs...but tells her too late to only take a small portion. Anne is high throughout the audition and apparently visualizes things as a cartoon world.
- A Minor Kidroduction: The film begins by showing Anne as a kid, establishing her unstable family dynamic and her growing obsession with Can't Stop the Quiz.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Terry, as the kindly and beloved elderly host of a long-running quiz show who is known for being welcoming to all contestants, brings to mind Alex Trebek and his long tenure hosting Jeopardy!.
- Old Dog: Mr. Linguini, the sisters' dognote is a 20-year-old pug. While he spends most of his time sleeping, Anne deeply loves him and considers him her only friend and main source of emotional support, and is distraught when he is kidnapped for ransom.
- One Degree of Separation: It turns out that Ron's charades partner is ex-CIA, and is in fact a coworker of Jenny's oft-mentioned ex-boyfriend. Even lampshaded by the text: "Small world!"
- Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat: Anne is so nervous ahead of her Can't Stop the Quiz audition that she's sweating buckets.Anne: My armpits look like Niagara Falls.
- Pet the Dog: Ken and his men kidnap dogs but they blackmail their owners by threatening to treat the dogs so well that they will become attached to their new owners and not want to go back.
- Practically Different Generations: Jenny is a decade older than her younger sister Anne (Sandra Oh is seventeen years older than Awkafina), which contributes to Anne's Disappointing Older Sibling feelings towards her since she never felt like Jenny properly looked out for her.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Anne is uptight, awkward, a bland dresser, and works a desk job, while Jenny is gregarious, irresponsible, a colorful dresser, and has trouble holding down a career.
- Sorry, I'm Gay: Jenny hits on the doctor who fixes her dislocated hand. He tells her he is both married and gay.Jenny: Why did you have to say two reasons?
- Undignified Death: Anne and Jenny's father died by falling off the railing on a single's cruise and drowning in the Caribbean. They muse that their paternal relatives regard this with embarrassment and it factors into their treatment of Anne and Jenny.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: At the end, footage of the characters is shown with text overlaid telling us what they got up to.
- Anne won over 90 days of Can't Stop the Quiz, befriended Terry, and became a writer on the show.
- Jenny cashed her check from Choochie's, paid off their mother's debt, and bought a Malibu mansion.
- Francine died happy!
- The woman working at the nursing home turned out to be a murderer.
- Ken and his gang received lifetime Choochie's from Jenny and eat there all the time.
- "Ben Franklin" now forgoes modern technology entirely while in character, leaving it to his temp hire.
