Reality Queen is a 2019 mockumentary comedy about a famous reality model, trying to stay relevant when a new woman steals her spotlight.
Reality Queen is a faux documentary from director Steven Jay Bernheim. It follows reporter Diana Smelt Marlin (Kate Orsini) as she dives deep into the life of famous reality star and model, London Logo (Julia Faye West), a women who is mainly known for having a sex tape with Mike Tyson (playing himself) and then releasing a reality show with another famous party socialite Rochelle Ritzy (Sheli Boone). This leads to many money offering deals with fashion designers, book publishers and so on.
Now, many years have passed and London is not as relevant as she once was. Another woman named Kristy Kim (Candace Kita) have burst onto the scene and is stealing a lot of London’s thunder and her fans. With the help of her spin publicist Winston Spritz (Loren Lester), best friend Angelina Stresland (Denise Richards) and other people on her payroll. They will find a way to bring her back on top again.
Playing like a series of episodes with a different day displayed on the screen, Reality Queen is at times a very funny parody of other famous reality celebrities. It’s obvious that both Kristy Kim and London Logo are take offs of Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. Keeping up with the Kardashians was a result of the sex tape that Kim was in. Plus the reality show that Rochelle and London started in is a jab at The Simple Life with Hilton and Nicole Richie, which ran for five seasons. I understand the humor because I was around at that time when these shows were big back in 2007. However, I don’t think many of the jokes will land today in 2019 because we’re all so used to it.
In the first fifteen minutes, with the use of the reporter character, it’s established that London Logo cares mostly about herself as she pays people to help praise her more. We witness moments where London is presented with a problem, someone fixes said problem, no lesson is learned and then another one rolls in with usually the same results. If Reality Queen wanted to be a satire on America’s obsession with celebrity culture, I wish the movie would have delved into why many people (including young women) love London so much when she doesn’t care at all about them. I like a main character who is vain and does many dumb things but I wanted to see consequences for her actions and that just doesn’t happen.
The only character I liked was Rochelle Ritzy played by Sheli Boone. She was the only one who felt like a real fleshed out person instead of the usual tropes we saw from everyone else in this feature. She wanted to get away from her past and the lifestyle that London and others have seduced her with and will do so again. The movie features fun cameos from John WItherspoon as a plumber, who is hired to save London’s gerbil (she thinks it’s a dog) from the toilet and Charles Fleischer as a Larry King like talk show host.
Reality Queen is a result of way too many cooks in the kitchen. When a script lists more than 3 writers, I get nervous. Never once did I understand what London’s main goal was or if Kristy Kim was the villain. Some jokes at times were quite funny but others felt shoehorned in. If this was released during the height of the reality show craze, it may have held up like it should.