Scott Coffey Is Not The Next Kevin Smith And Adult World Is Not The Next Clerks.

The Good: Decent performances, One or two lines
The Bad: Generally unlikable/unrealistic characters, Dull plot, Production issues, Moments of overbearing soundtrack
The Basics: At long last, Adult World hits theaters . . . only to be disappointing.


Two years ago, I lived in Upstate New York in a little village near Syracuse. I worked in the city of Syracuse and recall geeking out when I watched God Bless America (reviewed here!) with my wife and we found ourselves easily identifying many of the buildings in the background of the film. We were also very aware when Scott Coffey and his film crew was in Syracuse filming Adult World. As luck would have it, one day we were driving home from the mall and we actually saw the film being shot (I caught a glimpse of Emma Roberts and geeked out for a solid couple of days). So, despite moving to Michigan, Adult World was one of the movies I have actually been anticipating watching for (literally) years. Today, my anticipation ended when I had the chance to watch the movie.

And now I’m done with that. Adult World, despite having an amusing premise and several cast members whose work I actually enjoy – I was psyched to see John Cullum in something new and with the release of House Of Cards Season Two (reviewed here!) yesterday, I’ve been seeing a lot of Reed Birney the last couple of days -, Adult World turned out to be a plodding, listless film that left me sorry I bothered with it. Despite Adult World not being the directoral debut of Scott Coffey, the film reminded me of Clerks (reviewed here!) . . . without the charm or originality. Outside a well-delivered line about having a life or death creative emergency, which perfectly defines the melodramatic protagonist of Adult World, the film is short on charm and is almost entirely without a purpose, originality, or enjoyable moments.

Amy is a recent college graduate in Syracuse, New York who has $90,000 in student loan debts and a degree in Poetry. After a guy she likes from one of her poetry classes tries to have sex with her on camera as a fraternity prank, she returns home, humiliated. When her parents cut her off, she has to stop sending out her poetry submissions and get a real job. Having led a very sheltered life, she is dismayed when the only job she can get is at the local sex toy/movie/magazine shop, Adult World. There, her naïveté shows when she is horrified by the toys, baffled by what it means when a customer’s account notes they return videos sticky and is shocked by a transvestite man using a urinal while she is cleaning the shop’s toilets. At Adult World, she meets Alex, the laid-back manager who seems charmed by her lack of experience. Amy is thrilled when her favorite poet, Rat Billings, is doing a book signing at a local book store and she stalks the poet relentlessly, even getting her car stolen in the process.

When her parents get (reasonably) upset that she cancelled her car’s theft insurance in order to use the money for mailing out poetry submissions, Amy leaves home. Knowing only one bus line, she ends up at the apartment of the transvestite, Rubia. Seeing Rat Billings at a nearby store, Rubia and Amy hunt the poet down and Amy badgers her way into his life. Despite being utterly disinterested in her life or her poetry, Rat agrees to let Amy hang out (and even volunteers to include one of her poems in his forthcoming anthology of shit poetry). As Amy slowly loses her illusions about living successfully as a poet and about how great Rat Billings is, she rejects her position in the porn shop, then comes to appreciate it (and Alex).

Amy is a terrible protagonist and that is the fundamental problem with Adult World. As cliché as the virgin twentysomething might be, there is a terrible lack of realism in the way Amy throws herself at the frat boy at the beginning of the film, given how she hasn’t just given it up for anyone else. While her terrible, drunken, seduction attempt on Rat Billings is one of the high points of Adult World, by the time it comes up, it is virtually impossible for the viewer to care about Amy, her life, or the direction of the film.

Amy is thoroughly immature, in a way that is unpleasant to watch. She runs around with no regard for other people (she cuts past the line of about ten people to get to Rat Billings so she can have her “moment,” which is just rude and annoying to watch) and she is unpleasantly melodramatic. Her idealism loses its charm early in Adult World as she has no sympathy for how her parents do try their best to spoil her, but she keeps demanding more with no regard to their situation.

But the real problem for Adult World is how slow the character is to change. After a lifetime of being sheltered and living optimistically, she runs out into a dark, dirty, freezing world, where her hero turns out to be an asshole and it doesn’t really phase her. Instead, she blunders on oblivious in so many ways. It makes Adult World into a farce, but it isn’t funny enough to truly be farcical or even ironic; it just makes Amy seem unlikable and unrealistic. Emma Roberts gives a performance that plays up the melodrama, but Amy is one of her least memorable or likable characters.

At the other end of the spectrum are John Cusack and Armando Riesco (Evan Peters’s Alex is the obvious good-looking boyfriend material who lacks the screen presence or character of Riesco’s Rubia, who serves as more of a mentor to Amy in real terms than Cusack’s Billings). John Cusack gives a familiar-feeling performance as the grumpy Rat Billings. Billings is good casting for Cusack and the disillusioned poet is well within his established range. In fact, Cusack almost makes it seem reasonable that a one-hit wonder of a modern poet would not endorse suicide. Armando Riesco is a pleasant surprise as Rubia, though he plays it remarkably safe for a transvestite (despite a leg-shaving scene, Rubia never is a presented as a plausible woman).

Ultimately, Adult World is not funny, not populated by great characters and is not an amazing showcase of anyone’s talent. It is an easy film to pass on, even during the February Slump.

For other indie films, please check out my reviews of:
Authors Anonymous
Cheap Thrills
Stay

3/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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David Lynch's Lesbian Love Dream Masterpiece Mulholland Drive Suffers When Viewed Rationally . . . Or On DVD.

The Good: Great weird for the sake of weird movie, Direction, Sexual graphicness, Acting, Moments of character.
The Bad: Lack of DVD bonus features
The Basics: If there was ever a film that deserved slews of DVD bonus features, Mulholland Dr. is it; unfortunately, we don't get them on this DVD presentation!


Recently, I made a tradeoff in my reviews and I was pretty straightforward about it. On my yearly cross-country trip, I was given a copy of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Having watched and reviewed the entire Twin Peaks series, I was psyched. And when I was done, I was just shaking my head and I was pretty peeved. The problem with Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was that it was weird for the sake of weird, without any respect for the already known story of Twin Peaks. As a result, I allowed myself to pan that film, with the caveat: I would re-view and (finally) review Mulholland Dr. a later and better film by writer and director David Lynch and give it a positive review.

The reason I was willing to do this - and be so straightforward about it - was that I enjoyed Mulholland Dr. when I saw it and I appreciated what David Lynch was trying to do with the film, which was to create a dream on film. I could dig it and with its non-linear sense of time and creepy conceits (my ex called it "The Best Of David Lynch") it is a pretty astounding film, nine out of ten, maybe a little more. On DVD, though, it is starkly presented and for such an ambitious film, viewers deserve more. Much more.

This is the point at which I usually leap into a plot description of the film. I will, but it's important to note this: the film is not linear in its storytelling, is not supposed to make perfect sense, and includes deep philosophical ideas some of which are not brought in until the last half hour of the film. Moreover, in that last half hour, characters swap identities (so actors we have been watching for the prior hour and a half are suddenly running around with different names and characters, but not all of the characters are swapped out). Sound confusing? It's supposed to be, just like a dream. To David Lynch's credit, he does a bang-up job with making something creepy, deep, erotic and visually stunning with Mulholland Dr. I cannot recall another movie I could actually recommend sitting through with the film muted just for the creepy presentation.

A brunette is riding in a limousine up Mulholland Dr. late one night when she is ordered at gunpoint out of the car, which is immediately crashed into by young kids speeding down the canyon. She survives, memory lost and she stumbles down the hill and falls asleep under some bushes in front of an apartment complex. The next morning, she sneaks into an apartment there. This happens to be the apartment Betty Elms is housesitting for her aunt at and she discovers the woman there, who names herself Rita off a poster in the house. Betty is an eager young woman fresh in Hollywood waiting for her big break in films and preparing herself for auditions. Still, she is intrigued by Rita and her lack of memories.

At the same time, director Adam Kesher's film is being taken out of his hands. The female lead is being recast and the local mob - led by a very particular espresso-drinker - is demanding that their actress be given the lead. Kesher resists, but upon finding his wife in bed with the pool man and visited by a strange, prophetic cowboy, he gives in and hires actress Camilla Rhodes for the part. By this time, Betty and Rita are tracking down Rita's true identity and are falling in love, which puts them on a collision course with a mysterious artifact that alters reality itself.

The artifact is a blue box, which Rita has the key for. I liken Lynch's blue box to the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. From that interpretation, the color scheme during the opening scene dance contest presumes that the entire film takes place within the confines of this supernatural plane and it pleasantly voids the need for any strong, linear connection to the film.

This works better for the viewer as well because there is no real mystery to Mulholland Dr. It is a thriller where mood is heightened, colors are brightened and the stories are more contrived than real. The characters are largely archetypes, making their interchangability more understandable and acceptable. It also excuses the actors for some of their presentations.

For example, anyone watching Mulholland Dr. and looking at it rationally must conclude instantly that either Naomi Watts cannot act or David Lynch cannot write and direct. Why? Betty's first scenes in the film are strings of cliches of the young woman come to Hollywood to make it big, hammed up with an unbelievable earnest quality that makes her into the complete rube. Her appearance follows two detectives arriving on the scene of the limo crash and speaking dull lines that simply repeat the same observation over and over again. The lack of inflection in that scene plays off the over-the-top performance of Betty as an archetype screen virgin who truly is out of her element.

When one accepts that she is supposed to be this way and simply goes with it, the film becomes much more enjoyable. Lynch is incorporating a camp quality into Mulholland Dr. that only enhances the overall weirdness of the film.

And that is what Mulholland Dr. is truly about: style as an expression of genuine surrealism. Is there substance? I'm not sure. There is relevance as this is easily one of the most artistic films ever conceived and executed. Visually, it is stunning. Lynch plays reds and pinks off opposition blues throughout the film, creating character colors that resonate (bad things happen in the blue). As characters shift and change, so too does their color scheme. It's clever and subtle and artistic.

As for substance, it's hard to argue there is little or no substance in Mulholland Dr. when the acting is this good. Whether they come easy or not (Watts was recently interviewed saying she preferred her love scenes in this film because there was no sexual tension with her costar, Laura Harring), Watts and Harring fearlessly leap into some of the most passionate lesbian love scenes shown on the big screen. The film is sexy and it's only after one actually sits and considers it that they might realize that the most passionate moments are actually the kissing scenes. Arguably the sexiest moment comes when Harring as Camilla Rhodes kisses Melissa George as Camilla Rhodes and one is able to see that George walks away with her pink lipstick smudged over with Harring's deeper red.

The reason I belabor this is that Mulholland Dr. is largely about mood and surrealism and it manages to be both sexy and scary, tense and confusing. Adam might be the most sensible and realistic character as he has the most straightforward struggle in the film and the most believable presentation. Adam fights the fight of an artist against the mob and a studio that is strange and manifests itself only to attempt to thwart his artistic expression and one feels this is Lynch channeling his frustration at Hollywood itself.

Adam is played with subtle brilliance by Justin Theroux. Theroux is required to play Adam with quiet anger that erupts with an efficient sense of controlled ruthlessness, like when he discovers his wife's infidelity, he takes her jewelry and pours pink paint over it all. Theroux is joined by an amazing cast, which includes Lynch regular Michael J. Anderson. Fans of Alias will appreciate seeing a very different side of actress Melissa George. George erupts onto the screen in Mulholland Dr. as a pink-clad singing actress who smiles and swoons, something no one who became captivated by her in the third season of Alias would have bet she could do!

Naomi Watts might well give the performance of her career as Betty. She is absolutely convincing in every scene she is in as she goes from the eager and naive, cliche-speaking rube to the amateur detective determined to save the woman she loves. Watts makes us believe that she is a terrible actress, but by the end of the film it is so clearly a script contrivance we are forced to concede that she was amazing in her presentation.

But it is Laura Harring who rocks Mulholland Drive, not for anything as simplistic as her nudity (Lynch airbrushed out much of that). She immediately establishes the tone with her clear performance of an amnesiac without any lines of dialogue. As the film continues, she is utterly convincing as a lost woman whose identity has been robbed from her. Harring plays the vacant stares as compelling and the moments of stronger dialogue as unforced.

David Lynch writes and directs the film in such a way that it accomplishes exactly what it set out to do. This is a dream on film and it is often a nightmare, one that is confused and sweaty and an eccentric combination of darkness and bright colors. Lynch's use of music is impressive (the Spanish version of "Crying" in the Club Silencio is amazing) and one forgives him most of his conceits, even the ones he used in prior cinematic endeavors.

On DVD, Mulholland Dr. suffers from a lack of DVD bonus features. There is no commentary track (the film desperately needs one) and only a theatrical trailer for the movie. More than that, the paper slip within the DVD case gives viewers ten "clues" to solving the mystery of the movie, as if there were an actual point to it. This feels particularly low to a cinephile who loves surrealism and has stuck with Lynch through some of his more questionable works.

And this brings us back to the comparison between Mulholland Dr. and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. The reason this was a "no compromise" compromise is simple. Mulholland Dr. has no cannon to betray and can do whatever it wants (and does!). Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was in some ways confined to what had been presented in that universe before and the film version made some problematic contradictions. So, for weird for the sake of weird, there is one clear choice and that is to take a trip down Mulholland Dr.!

For other works Justin Theroux is involved in, check out my reviews of:
Megamind
Iron Man 2
Six Feet Under - Season Four
Zoolander

9/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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