Take a couple of culotte-clad gals from the Midwest looking to “get their shimmer back,” send them on a raucous holiday adventure set against a backdrop of Dorothy Draper designs on steroids, and you have the comic romp Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.
The film follows lifelong pals Barb and Star (played by real-life BFFs and cowriters Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, who also penned Bridesmaids) as they leave the confines of their ordinary Midwestern lives for the ultimate holiday filled with romance, lots of water sports, and a villain who has their sights set on destroying the seaside town. And did we mention this is a musical comedy?
Production designer Steve Saklad brilliantly conceived the two contrasting worlds of Nebraska (where the joined-at-the-hip pair work at the retailer Jennifer Convertibles) and the fictitious Vista del Mar. Cancun doubles as the Florida resort, and he tells AD, “It has this weird and wonderful sort of fake American vibe to it that we just loved.” The Hyatt Zilara served as the lobby, poolside, and beach location known in the film as the Palm Vista Hotel. While the location was picture-perfect, filming in Mexico in the summer was not without its problems. The sweltering heat resulted in night shoots, and special considerations had to be given to both the sea turtles in nesting season and the hotel’s guests on holiday. (Filming took place pre-pandemic.)
With Broadway musical–style numbers as the opening and finale (and a hysterical three-minute operatic number from Fifty Shades of Grey star Jamie Dornan in the middle), “we knew it was something that was heightened and had more color than you are used to. It also has a period feel, but not quite period, so we got excited.”
Forgoing the real hotel’s cool beige color palette that “goes on as far as the eye can see,” Saklad opted for a “Technicolor dream of turquoise banners, pink flamingos, and dayglow colors.” Kitsch and eye candy are taken to a whole new level thanks to a menagerie of plastic animals (dolphins, pelicans, angelfish, and iguanas) sourced by set decorator Mariana Castañeda. “What she couldn’t find she would replicate,” says Saklad, who returned to the same Mexico City studio where he worked on Gregory Peck’s Old Gringo in 1989. “Every crazy, off-kilter idea I could come up with, Mariana and the team would make it happen.”
The interiors of Barb and Star’s hotel room became a well-thought-out metaphor. For the matching custom Styrofoam sculpted shell headboards, Saklad notes, “We were prepared to take seaside metaphors to the nth degree—these ladies are climbing out of their shells.” Blue-and-white striped bed linens, turquoise-and-white doors, seashell-glass lamps, and white wicker furniture complete the decor. For additional reference, he looked at Robert A.M. Stern’s designs for Disney World hotels. “It had this perfect retro design that takes seaside architecture and turns it a little bit campy.”
Saklad referenced the Hollywood musicals of the Golden Age in particular for the film’s finale at the annual “Seafood Jam” festival, where beauty pageant contestants appear in clamshells against a giant sunburst. “Even though it’s kitschy beyond belief, it’s a tribute to the 1930s musical comedies that feature a grand tap dance number against a sunburst,” he notes. “And for the aesthetic, we went crazy with old Americana where everything was red, white, blue, and gold. Our goal was to make people feel like they are transported to ’50s Florida, and the idea is the jam has the exact same set up for the past 50 years.”
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For production designers, designing such a wacky comedy upped the ante. “Comedy usually works best when it’s absolutely neutral and real,” he concludes. “For me, this is a musical comedy and gives us the license to exploit all that crazy stuff. The palette that we picked matched the costume aesthetic that matched the voices that Kristen and Annie used that matched the crazy ways the camera moved and matched the funny song score they added. The film is full-on old-school musical stuff.”
