REVIEW

‘GREENER GRASS’ a WTF Explosion of Boundless Weirdness and Creativity

Name: Greener Grass review
Item: Greener Grass
Rating: 4
Author: Matt Oakes

By Matt Oakes · October 17, 2019

‘GREENER GRASS’ a WTF Explosion of Boundless Weirdness and Creativity

Where to watch: Streaming on AMC+, free on Kanopy, or rent or buy on digital (updated October 2026)Watch on AMC+ · Watch on Kanopy · Rent or buy on Amazon · Buy on Blu-ray/4KAs an Amazon Associate, Silver Screen Riot earns from qualifying purchases.

Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe have done it. They have made the weirdest, most inexplicable, indescribable film of 2019. And I kinda love it. The pair write, direct, and star in Greener Grass, a feature-length adaptation of their 2015 of the same name, fulfilling a hole in the market for those craving a mighty scoop of WTF in with their satirical entertainment. The result is like if Yorgos Lanthimos directed an episode of Sesame Street, a highly-mannered bizarro world where citizens battle self-preservation instincts in order to appease faux-friendly neighbors.

Anything and everything is fair game in DeBoer and Luebbe’s creation, a movie that immediately introduces audiences to its pastel-shaded nightmare logic. In the very first scene, Jill (DeBoer) is squawking about the usual suburban nothing chitter-chatter with friend Lisa (Luebbe) who suddenly notices and compliments Jill on her new baby. Without a moment’s hesitation, and sans any kind of provocation, Jill asks Lisa if she wants to have her. Not hold her for a moment. Not watch her for a date night. Have her. After all, as Jill says, “I’ve been with her since she was born.”

This is the first of many make or break points for prospective audiences giving the film a shot and I appreciate that DeBoer and Luebbe have the confidence to get as looney as giving a baby away so early rather than try to hide just how contrary their film runs to typical storytelling and film logic. For this reason though, many will dismiss Greener Grass as “too strange” right off the bat, missing out on the joys of a picture where you have literally no idea what could possibly happen in the next scene. And the options are quite literally unlimited. Fans of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and Erik Andre need apply as they are already familiar with the random, extemporaneous style popularized by these off-mainstream comics but don’t get lulled into thinking that there isn’t a larger point here.

▶ Streaming free on Kanopy. More picks: The Best Comedy Movies on Kanopy Right Now →

Greener Grass movie still

Greener Grass doesn’t have to ground its satire in familiar plot devices. This is its strength, not its weakness. Part late-night Youtube video, part rejected Mad-TV sketch, this suburban sendup mashes so many quirks and oddities into its margins that you’re constantly gawking at all the weirdness. Take for instance the haircuts that end in gory messes (hair bleeds when it is cut in this universe), kids that randomly turn into golden retrievers, soccer balls that are adopted as babies (named ‘Twilson’, because Tom Hanks already claimed ‘Wilson’), and a corrosive television show called ‘Kids with Knifes’ that, yes, we are able to watch and simply cannot get enough of.

In the background of any given scene, a man could be emptying fistful after fistful of pocket change onto his night stand or a yoga class could actually just be a watch party of Bill Paxton’s Twister. Nothing makes much sense but the underlying motivations – people trying desperately to both impress and not offend their peers – is as glistening as the color palette, which resembles an Anne Frank trapper keeper. In that capacity, what DeBoer and Luebbe have created is the ‘Oops! All Berries’ of zany satires, one that defies familiar comic logic and common sense by in an endlessly clever and knowing way.

Putting themselves front and center in the action, Luebbe and DeBoers are excellent channeling their 90-degrees-rotated-off-the-axis comedy style into their performances and are joined by more comic talent in Neil Casey, Beck Bennett and The Good Place breakout D’Arcy Carden to drive up the awkward, anything’s possible hyper-reality of the setting. Like an alternate 1950s that sort of survived a nuclear blast (but not without side effects), the characters are trapped in a golf cart community of adult braces and dug-in pools. The plot’s strung along by Lisa’s untethering from society after giving up her baby and a serial killer on the loose called the “Bagger Killer” (assumed to be a local grocery bagger) terrorizing the neighborhood, but not really.

As weird as rubbing your tongue over your teeth right after you got your braces off, Greener Grass is like a dream you wake up from and can’t quite remember all the details, one that you find the logic of increasingly falling apart as you hurriedly try to explain it. Like a vision of Earth beamed in from the moon or a sitcom made by aliens trying to approximate daily human life. As if John Waters dropped acid and rebooted The Stepford Wives, the vision is shaggy but singular; sick, twisted and random. Exactly the ingredients that made up a cult classic, which if given the right spotlight, this could assuredly become.

Tackling relevant social mores and suburban power dynamics with a machine gun, DeBoer and Luebbe have branded a new form of slaughter-satire. Greener Grass makes up a growing network of out-there female duos, such as Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle of Hulu’s very funny middle school comedy Pen15, who are stretching the boundaries of comedy, pushing at the fringes until it breaks, jamming square pegs into round roles until the frame busts off, and creating their own sandbox just to turn around and do a doo-doo in it themselves.

CONCLUSION: ‘Greener Grass’ uses dream logic and ontological sloppiness to create a singularly bizarro sendup of modern person as social media package. The twisted, random, and bogus plot will alienate viewers expecting traditional comedic stylings but those willing to get weird may just love what Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe have cooked up.