One thing I need you to know about Maeve Higgins, Irish comedian, actor, activist, and podcaster, is that on the NPR news quiz Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me she once gave the following answer:
Peter Sagal: Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week’s news. Maeve, 23andMe is the popular genomics company. They not only successfully determined one woman’s ancestry, but they also revealed to her that she was related to whom?
Maeve Higgins: I don’t know about this, actually. Did they find out she was related to her – obviously not her mom.
Sagal: Well…
Higgins: No, no, no. Somebody, like, cool – like, somebody, like – did she – Joan of Arc or something?
Sagal: No.
Higgins: Can I get a clue? Are you allowed to get a clue?
Sagal: Yeah. Her…
Adam Felber: It is a person living or dead?
Higgins: Is it a person living or dead?
Sagal: It’s a living person. It’s a person living quite near her.
Higgins: And would she be happy that she would be related to them?
Sagal: Oh, no.
Higgins: Christina Aguilera.
Higgins: I don’t know why I think that.
Sagal: Really? That’s where your mind went?
Higgins: I don’t know why…
Sagal: It would be horrifying to find that you’re related to….
Higgins: Yeah…
Sagal: Oh, my God.
Higgins: You’d just be, like, oh, god. I didn’t support her back then and . . . Still don’t like her.
The second thing I need you to know about Maeve Higgins is that I absolutely love her.
She’s smart and funny and weird and I can’t promise that she’d like me that much, but I’d try really hard to be her friend if she’d let me. I could spend a lot of time talking about her books, stand-up, or podcasts, but what I want to talk about today is the 2019 film Extra Ordinary.
Extra Ordinary stars Higgins as Rose, a sweet-but-lonely driving instructor in a small Irish town who can also communicate with and exorcise ghosts. (Please note this is not the 2023 series Extraordinary about a different Irish woman and the supernatural that I also love. Hopefully more to come on that.) No, what I mean is this:
It’s a relatively simple plot. Girl meets boy who is haunted by the ghost of his dead wife- no, actually I’m not going to do that. It’s not a “simple” plot, it’s just very straightforward and easy to follow. Ghosts are real, Rose can see them, and she has to use those powers to keep Will Forte from using those ghosts for evil.
It’s also great. Ninety minutes of weird, fun, gross, occasionally awkward hilarity. And yes, Will Forte is there! He was not my favorite from his SNL cast, but he’s definitely grown on me. As much as that terrible wig could never grow on him.
Also there? Barry Ward.
I like Barry Ward very much, it turns out. I don’t want to give away too much, but I will say, I feel like he’d be great at party games. Plus if Aidan Gillen and Michael Fassbender had a baby, it’d be Barry Ward. Right?
Tell me I’m wrong.
But mostly, Extra Ordinary is Higgins’ show. She’s great in the role, but the role is also amazing. Granted, I would watch her read a phone book (the Ls would be hilarious), and this movie only supports my decision. She’s lonely, sure, but not sad or pathetic about it. Rose isn’t awkward because she doesn’t fit in with others, but because they don’t really fit in with her. If more people understood why something like a pause and a head tilt is blisteringly funny, the world would be better and Rose would be less alone. But as is, she remains haunted by both the living and the dead who mostly aren’t cool enough to understand why she’s great.
All that said, I do still understand if Christina Aguilera isn’t a fan.
Extra Ordinary is available to stream, among other places, on Amazon.
