Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a review of a flick that I've been wanting to see since I read the cast list and plot synopsis at the Sundance website. The film is PRETTY PERSUASION and our own MiraJeff has taken a look at it for ya'. James Woods sounds awesome and Evan Rachel Wood sounds... hot and bitchy and slightly illegal in a legal way, if that makes any sense. This one should be great! Here's MiraJeff. He gives you the rundown of the flick, so beware of mild spoilers!!!
Greetings AICN, MiraJeff here with my last review from the West Coast. Tomorrow it’s back to the East Side for me, and thank God for that, because I was getting tired of all the fake tits out here. Or was I…?
In the devilish comedy Pretty Persuasion, Evan Rachel Wood stars as Kimberly Joyce, a modern-day Lolita stuck attending a prissy Pasadena high school for the offspring of the rich and famous. Kimberly, you see, is a precocious 15 year-old whose dream it is to be a famous actress. She is keenly aware of how difficult it is to stand out in a town overflowing with bombshell blondes, and so she actively sets out to distinguish herself from the rest of the herd by accusing her English teacher of sexual assault and capitalizing on the media attention along with her BFF, Brittany, (Elisabeth Harnois) and the new Middle Eastern student she takes under her wing, Randa (Adi Schnall).
Pretty Persuasion works as a satirical comedy because of its remarkably fresh script that fires on all cylinders, written by Skander Halim. The film is a wicked lampoon of suburban affluence that pulls no punches and serves as the anti-high school movie. It is one of the most vile, trashy, racist screenplays ever to be brought to life in the form of a side-splitting comedy. The characters in Pretty Persuasion say the things most PC-people would never dare to, even if they might be thinking it. No race or creed escapes unharmed from the characters contagious misery. The Jews, Arabs, and surprisingly women, are the script’s most reviled targets. The film also plays on the myth that men want women who act like angels in public and devils in the bedroom. Like a young Nicole Kidman in To Die For, Kimberly uses her “acting” (i.e. oral sex) abilities to use the people she wants to get things from, including the son of a prominent Jewish lawyer she needs, as well as a lesbian reporter.
The film opens with Kimberly performing a sexy pre-pubescent dance for two television casting agents, both of whom are hilarious. She’s auditioning for the role of a French seductress and the scene calls for some scandalous baguette dropping and heels so high they put Snoop Dogg to shame. I, for one, immediately became smitten with Ms. Wood’s character (why does the NY Times insist on calling everyone Mr. or Ms. so-and-so?) in spite of the fact that she’s a conniving, manipulative, cold-hearted, mean-spirited bitch, or twat, as her father (James Woods) lovingly refers to her as. She’s seriously a wench of a teenage girl, and the worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) part is, she knows it, literally. She’s so in love with herself that when one character tells her how amazing she is, she answers nonchalantly, “I know.”
Since the film takes place at a prep school, all the girls dress like cock-teases in tight pink tops and sleek gray skirts, a dress code enforced to make sure nobody stands out and creates a disruption, though all the outfits really do is reinforce naughty Catholic schoolgirl stereotypes. Wood wears it (more than) well and while I couldn’t help but be reminded of Jena Malone in Saved! I thought Wood did bring something wholly original to her character.
As Kimberly’s career-driven, phone-sex obsessed father, James Woods steals every scene he’s in and is just marvelous to watch as he spews obscenities as fast as anyone in The Aristocrats. I loved him wandering around his house in a bathrobe and underwear, like Alfred Molina in Boogie Nights. At one point, he even wears my hometown red socks. The other performances are equally entertaining, including Danny Comden, acting like he just wandered out of the cast of The Tao of Steve. As Mr. Nichols, Mr. Anderson’s good friend, colleague, and eventual cliché-ridden attorney, he also steals every scene he’s in.
As Brittany, Elizabeth Harnois is given the Neve Campbell in Wild Things role, while looking like a blonde Lauren Ambrose. Alongside Wood and newcomer Schnall, they make an unlikely trio of friends. Schnall is impressive as the naïve Randa, whose family immigrates in search of the American dream, only to find a nightmare. I loved the bit where her authoritarian father expounds on the moral decay of America, if only because it’s right on the money. Elsewhere, Jane Krakowski sheds her Ally McBeal curls to play a seriously hot journalist, a role that is sure to nab her more jobs in the future. Perhaps the most disappointing turn in the film is Livingston’s, who is resigned to playing the straight man here. Maybe the problem is that everyone around him is so funny, he’s overshadowed, or maybe we’ve just come to expect his glib Office Space character, but here I found him underwhelming, which is too bad.
By the end of the film, as Kimberly watches herself on TV, she seems both fascinated by herself and disinterested, as if the fame she’s found wasn’t quite what she’s looking for, or worth the trouble. The lesson she leaves us with is fame is fleeting, but heartbreak lasts forever. Pretty Persuasion is a wickedly hilarious film that will have you laughing out loud. There are so many quotable lines in this film and I’ll leave you with the top 10.
1. Three reasons why beer is better than women: It doesn’t talk, it always goes down easy, and if it’s flat, you can throw it out.
2. In America, doctors don’t help the poor.
3. The Hebrew Trilogy.
a) Stab him with a dreidel!
b) Must be the Jews. They like to call and hang up
c) Wanna latke? They’re yummy.
4. The Randa Quadrilogy
a) Arabs are not in an enviable position.
b) You smell okay to me.
c) Don’t laugh. It’s offensive to your people.
d) Hey Arab chick! Wanna buy a gun?
5. Kitty, do you fuck dogs?
6. Eat your mushu pork. It’s fuckin’ delicious.
7. The Take-Home Messages
a) There’s a difference between bonafide racism, which is ignorant, & speaking the truth.
b) Actresses are important because they appear at charity events and in movies with positive social messages.
8. My tits are coming in nicely.
9. I know all about the immigrant experience. I’m Canadian.
10. Go ahead! Show me where Palestine is on the map. (laughter) What are you laughing at Sudan?
11. Bonus!
There you have it. I highly recommend Pretty Persuasion and hope everyone gets a chance to check it out this weekend. It’s definitely good stuff.
