This afternoon, Chrissy Teigen tweeted a story about being on an airplane and accidentally telling a man that his niece’s movie is trash.
Unfortunately, Chrissy refuses to say what the movie is, or who the man is, so we’ll have to do our own investigating. Let’s put our thinking caps on. First, here are the tweets.
Here are the facts:
- The movie in reference came out this year.
- The movie is “literally the worst” movie Chrissy has ever seen and “a complete piece of garbage.”
- The cast of the movie is, however, “good.”
- The lead or co-lead of the movie is a woman.
- That female lead has at least one uncle.
- The movie is being screened in-flight.
Which movies came out this year?
I could do a full list of every 2016 movie, but that’s silly and inefficient. We want to know which movies this year starred female leads. So for the sake of time, we’ll have to narrow down the possibilities. We must first consider what airline Chrissy flew with and their in-flight entertainment.
In order to proceed to a solid answer, we’ll have to make a few more educated assumptions here. Obviously, we don’t know if this man was watching in-flight entertainment or a movie on his own device. I’m going to assume he was watching in-flight entertainment because not many people want to pay for Wi-Fi to power a device to watch a movie. Even in the case that he wasn’t, most of the 2016 movies available will be the same as in-flight entertainment.
The laws of probability suggests this wasn’t one of the smaller airlines. I’m also assuming that Chrissy would never fly the following airlines because they’re beneath her and, frankly, all of us: Spirit, America West, Southwest, Virgin, Frontier, Northwest.
That leaves the major airlines: Delta, American Airlines, United and JetBlue.
Which movies are these airlines playing?
I’m eliminating animated films from these lists (Finding Dory, etc.), since Chrissy indicated that the “lead” “niece” is human. I’m also excluding independent and lesser known movies movies, if they don’t have what I deem to be a “good” cast. That hardly matters anyway.
For now, I am including movies with male leads, just so we can go through this process of elimination together.
1) According to their site, Delta’s current in-flight entertainment includes:
- War Dogs
- Florence Foster Jenkins
- Suicide Squad
- Jason Bourne
- Nerve
2) United is playing:
- The Hollars
- Ghostbusters
- Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
- Suicide Squad
- Morgan
- War Dogs
- Jason Bourne
- The Light Between Oceans
2) American Airlines is playing:
- Alice Through the Looking Glass
- Absolutely Fabulous
- All the Way
- Bad Moms
- Captain Fantastic
- Central Intelligence
- The Conjuring 2
- Deadpool
- Elvis/Nixon
- Free State of Jones
- Ghostbusters
- Me Before You
- Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates
- Morgan
- Neighbors 2
- The Nice Guys
- Now You See Me 2
- The Shallows
- Suicide Squad
- War Dogs
- X-Men: Apocalypse
(Note that last year, Chrissy beefed with American Airlines on Twitter. This doesn’t mean she’s never taken another American Airlines flight, but should be considered. I’m not sure how.)
JetBlue is playing:
- Suicide Squad
- Southside With You
- Florence Foster Jenkins
- The Light Between the Oceans
- Jason Bourne
Which of the above movies have female leads?
Note that, according to Chrissy’s tweet, the man said something along the lines of “My niece is the lead.” “The lead” means she plays a major role in the film. There are movies that feature “a” female lead (like the damsel in distress), but the way this was phrased indicates it’s likely that’s not the case here (so I’m eliminating Jason Bourne because Matt Damon is clearly “the lead”).
Out of the above movies, these are the ones with a female lead:
- Florence Foster Jenkins
- Suicide Squad
- Nerve
- The Hollars
- Ghostbusters
- The Light Between the Oceans
- Absolutely Fabulous
- Morgan
- Captain Fantastic
- Me Before You
- Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates
- The Shallows
- Southside With You
- Bad Moms
Which of those movies are terrible?
Certainly, there are bad movies nominated for awards but Chrissy is talking about “the worst movie I’ve ever seen.” It’s likely that the movie she’s referencing was NOT nominated for major awards. We can safely eliminate the following movies since they’re nominated for awards: Captain Fantastic, Florence Foster Jenkins.
That leaves us with the following list. Their Rotten Tomatoes scores (top critics scores, audience scores) are in parentheses:
- Suicide Squad (26%, 65%)
- Nerve (65%, 69%)
- The Hollars (43%, 65%)
- Ghostbusters (73%, 54%)
- The Light Between the Oceans (59%, 65%)
- Me Before You (58%, 73%)
- Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates (36%, 56%)
- The Shallows (77%, 60%)
- Southside With You (91%, 78%)
- Bad Moms (59%, 67%)
- Morgan (40%, 32%)
This part is tough because we have to consider Chrissy’s tastes. Do they align with critics or the general population? We can at least safely narrow the list down, by leaving out the films with equally positive critics and audiences scores.
Here are those movies and their female leads.
- Suicide Squad (26%, 65%) - Margot Robbie, Cara Delevingne
- The Hollars (43%, 65%) - Anna Kendrick
- The Light Between the Oceans (59%, 65%) - Alicia Vikander
- Me Before You (58%, 73%) - Emilia Clarke
- Morgan (40%, 32%) - Anya Taylor-Joy
- Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates (36%, 56%) - Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza
Which of these actresses has an uncle?
I’m not going to answer that because it’s too hard.
Which of these movies have a “good cast”?
This one is easy. A good cast means actors we consider to be solid. We can eliminate Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates because it stars Zac Efron and what’s his name. I also take “good cast” to mean more than two people of note, so a movie that only stars two decent actors wouldn’t count. That eliminates Me Before You and The Hollars. We’re left with:
- Suicide Squad (26%, 65%) - Margot Robbie, Cara Delevingne
- The Light Between the Oceans (59%, 65%) - Alicia Vikander
Things to consider:
- The Light Between the Oceans stars Michael Fassbender and Rachel Weisz. Good cast.
- Suicide Squad stars Viola Davis, Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Cara Delevigne. Good cast.
- The ratings on Suicide Squad are the worst of all these movies, qualifies as “a complete piece of garbage” to many people.
- Is Margot Robbie technically a “lead” in the ensemble cast of Suicide Squad? Sure.
The Answer
Margot Robbie in Suicide Squad. But does she have an uncle?
OR:
Could be anyone.
Margins of Error
In terms of margins of error, it’s possible that Chrissy’s tastes are specific and that she meant The Shallows, starring Blake Lively (does she have an uncle?). As mentioned, it’s possible this guy was watching, say, Denial on his laptop (starring Rachel Weisz...does she have an uncle?) or that the guy was watching a lesser-known film, in which case this entire investigation is trash.
This post has been updated to account for the female leads in Bad Moms and Morgan. It is possible that Chrissy is referring to Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell or Kathryn Hahn.