Ja’mie gets thumbs down from US critics

US critics make the point that a number of Australian critics (myself included) have noted: that Ja’mie: Private School Girl has too much Ja’mie and not enough relief with other Chris Lilley characters.

Hollywood Reporter
As opposed to Getting On, Chris Lilley has never had any problems manufacturing humor. HBO tapped his Australian series, Summer Heights High and Angry Boys, which both wonderfully showcased the Australian series creator, writer and star for an American audience. Lilley, who plays a bevy of disparate characters in his series — like a manically creative kid putting on an entire show for the world — returns this time with Ja’mie: Private School Girl, which takes his snotty, spoiled, mean and foul-mouthed character and gives her starring status and loads more screen time. That’s the problem. Ja’mie is funnier in short, searing scenes. She was surrounded in Summer Heights High with tons of other great Lilley creations and popped from the screen when given the chance to be, well, rich and bitchy. But centering one of Lilley’s most annoying characters in a series to ramble on incessantly robs the character of its past effectiveness and makes her — and the series — almost unbearable to watch. In this series, Ja’mie is back from her brief stay among the great unwashed and returned to the final year of queen bee status at upper crust Hillford Girls Grammar in Sydney, where she’s surrounded herself with sycophants and sets out to torment everyone else while drowning in her own shallowness. Maybe a good idea on paper, but not in execution. You’d have to be the biggest of Ja’mie fans to want to watch her talking nonstop for 30 minutes. That’s not to say Ja’mie: Private School Girl is devoid of laughs. Of course not. Lilley is too good at what he does to not find the funny. But it worked so much more effectively when he spread himself around to disparate characters. While Ja’mie skewers the predictable targets in this new series, it’s just too, too much to endure her without a break.

Flavorwire:
At the end of the day, the show is a thinly veiled excuse for Lilley to have a ball with Ja’mie’s milk-throwing histrionics and rich-bitch pronouncements like, “I know how to text and drive, I’m not a f***ng idiot!” Such GIF-able moments are sprinkled throughout the miniseries, explaining why Tumblr took to Private School Girl weeks before it landed on our shores (though HBO airs the first episode on Sunday, it’s been on the air in Australia since late October). And the show isn’t without its moments. Lilley’s a gifted physical comedian, pulling off dance moves that make Miley’s VMA performance look like the Bolshoi Ballet with gusto, with a talent for taking an age-old archetype to its logical extreme. But even though Private School Girl succeeds in delivering the occasional laugh, by the end of the second episode it’s painfully obvious that 24 minutes of uninterrupted screen time stretches Ja’mie’s appeal way too thin. The punchlines in Private School Girl begin to repeat themselves with alarming speed, crossing over from running gag to recycled joke around the time Ja’mie shrieks her umpteenth “Illy!” Ja’mie may be funny, but she’s also fairly one-note, a fact that becomes especially apparent when she’s the only fully developed character on the show. Lilley’s refusal to give Ja’mie anyone besides her complacent friends and family and a nearly mute love interest to riff off of means she’s forced to stand on her own. And unfortunately, there’s not too much to stand on besides exaggerated teen girl tropes and a host of semi-ironic -isms.

Washington Post:
I admit to being underwhelmed by some of Lilley’s previous efforts, but “Ja’mie” is an enjoyably sick wallow in the evil that lurks in adolescence, as well as a formidable exercise in extreme portraiture. The jokes and situations can be ugly and uncomfortably discriminatory, and I do wonder what Lilley really gains by making fun of snooty teenage girls — fish in a barrel full of iPhones. It helps that Lilley dedicates himself to a sole character, requiring less than one episode for viewers to completely believe in Ja’mie and savor a taste of the (alas, fleeting) comeuppance in store for her.

Boston Globe:
But there are cracks in Ja’mie’s thin veneer, and very early in the season it’s clear that there are cracks in the show. In the past, Lilley’s Ja’mie was surrounded by his other creations. Here, we have nothing but Ja’mie — and as “Heights” fans know, a little Ja’mie goes a long way. Think back to Rick Gervais’s David Brent in the British version of “The Office.” Gervais was skilled at making viewers horribly uncomfortable by digging himself into verbal graves. What gave the show humor were the reactions of those around him. “The Office” staff reflected what viewers were thinking at home. We could all commiserate and cringe together. There are no such characters in “Ja’mie.” Her friends seem to be around for the sole purpose of encouraging her unrelenting nastiness. Her parents bend to her ridiculous demands. Only her sister sasses back. This is the sad downfall of “Ja’mie.” Lilley’s writing is sharp and funny. He has an uncanny insight into high school. But the story is slow to unfold, and after two or three episodes, the premise feels stretched as tightly as Lilley trying to squeeze into Ja’mie’s school uniform. Where are the schoolyard catfights that should be happening with such a cruel girl? In “Summer Heights High,” there was an odd charm to Ja’mie’s outlandish behavior, to which she often seemed sincerely clueless. Her insults were always followed with a smile, as though ending every barb with “no offense” would remove the venom. This is a Ja’mie who is just plain cruel, and with nothing to soften her, the sting of her forked tongue is the only lasting impression.

Slate:
All in all, Private School Girl features the best parts of Summer Heights High, distilled: The exuberant crassness and sly social commentary are stronger here, and, along with Lilley’s anthropologically rigorous performance of a certain kind of teenage girlhood, we get all the campy scoring and ridiculously lascivious dance numbers (in one case, featuring all the uniforms of Hillford’s 100 years!) that made Summer Heights High great. And don’t worry: If, like me, you haven’t seen anything on TV that quite lives up to Mr. G’s musical finale in Summer Heights High, the deliciously baroque (and strangely feminist) climax of Private School Girl leaves little doubt that Ja’mie is still a very naughty girl with a slew of bad habits—and I hope she never breaks them.

USA Today
Where Summer Heights High was in effect a one-man show, with Lilley playing all the major parts, Ja’mie reduces the act to a one-character show. Sunday’s premiere is a virtual and quickly tiresome monologue, with Ja’mie spewing insults and bigoted attacks, to the delight of her friends and the occasional consternation of her parents. Imagine an entire episode of Glee where only Kitty speaks — and then imagine how quickly you’d go looking for something else to watch. And then do so.