‘Sausage Party’ review: Raunchy and relevant

Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon’s Sausage Party opens with a song, a droll and welcoming song sung by grocery goods very reminiscent of the cartoons Disney used to make. 

It isn’t surprising that the song, titled The Great Beyond because it essentially describes a kind of heavenly afterlife that awaits food after shoppers pick them, was composed by Alan Menken, who gave the world songs like The Little Mermaid’s ‘Under the Sea,” sung by sea creatures praising their underwater life, and The Beauty and the Beast’s “Be Our Guest,” sung by household tools who are all too ready to serve a visitor. If there is anyone capable of providing the right melody to give life to things that aren’t supposed to sing, it would be Menken.

From cute to crass 

Menken’s song doesn’t stay adorable for long. 

Right after the verses sung by operatic vegetables, fruits and bottles of condiments, the stanzas of more questionable content start piling in. The song almost immediately turns rowdy, mutating from a sweet tune that would have children smiling with glee into a parade of politically incorrect exclamations expressed by liquor that look like Adolf Hitler and other foodstuff with despotic tendencies.

Sausage Party is quite obviously not a cartoon that is meant for children. It is meant for those who were children when Menken’s songs opening for cartoons were still fashionable, for those who would find the film’s jovial and colorful aesthetic far from cute but a tad strange and intriguing given the very mature flavor of its entire narrative. 

Make no mistake. There is wit and wisdom to Tiernan and Vernon’s utility of the very commercial animation style to deliver adult humor and themes that feel cleverly alien amidst the commercial charm and pleasantry.

More than meets the eye

Sausage Party is more than just dirty and bawdy jokes that make it irresistibly entertaining. 

At its core, the cartoon talks of more serious matters, making use of the grocery store and its animated contents as a treasure trove of metaphors about contemporary society. The simplistic visuals of course lends to the veiling of the more pertinent discussions, making it feel like all of its provocations on sensitive issues involving race and religion are not serious. But they are, and they are very relevant.

The premise is simple enough. 

All the items from the grocery are alive and sentient. They want to get picked up by shoppers because as their welcoming song implies, getting picked up is the clear road to their heaven. Frank (Seth Rogen) is a hotdog whose only dream is to get picked up by a shopper so he can spend his life in heaven with his girlfriend, a virtuous bun named Brenda (Kristen Wiig). An accident gets them lost between the aisles alongside a bagel (Edward Norton), a lavash (David Krumholtz), and a vivacious taco (Salma Hayek).

Their straightforward adventure, which is rendered silly by the fact that they are everyday commodities who borrow the attributes and conflicts of the nations that popularized them, opens various possibilities of discourse on clashes based on race and religion, on the vulgarity of brash commercialism, and other things. The film confronts and questions, but all within the comforts of boorish fun.

Fitting together  

In Sausage Party, raunch and relevance fit together as beautifully as a meaty hotdog nestled on a fluffy bun.  – Rappler.com

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema.