A Plot: Straight dude falls in love with a bisexual girl but feels inferior so they breakup.
I had hope for this movie. But it let me down in so many ways.
First off, Holden. At the start, he's your average "witty, handsome, sort-of-nerdy" dude who is immediately smitten by your "quirky, adorable, given-up-on-love-but-in-a-smokes-cigs-and-definetly-knows-how-to-give-head-way" chick. His dialogue with her is perfect at the start and they have a great buildup to what is the reveal of her being lesbian.
The intensity of his hopeful romance is immediately smashed (and his punching bag of a best friend is halarious during the reveal, so entertained at his dismay and happy that he gets to watch the girls kiss) when she kisses a girl.
Immediately, Holden gets all the more relatable. This girl he can't have wanders into his life by showing up at his door and they exchange witty dialogue that ends up with them at the park, discussing her sexuality.
This is my favorite scene. The two of them tackle the meaning of sex, with her opening up to him about what she thinks is sex, which is... whatever anyone deems it to be. His preconcieved notions about women and sex are questioned, and seemingly, he's more open to them being just friends. This scene is beyond its years in it's risk taking and its eloquence in explaining to an immature male audience what sex really is about.
I was hopeful for the movie and Holden's character, but this is where they both start to turn for the worse.
One dumb montage later, and Holden doesn't care about the comic book anymore, just the girl. In the most out of touch way, the movie portrays her as "leading him on". She takes him out and giggles like a middle schooler, he takes her to an arcade and does the less physical version of (holding her waist and showing her how to swing a baseball bat), and they stare longing into each others eyes. Like, of course, that's what a lesbian would do.
Meanwhile, "oh no, hes neglecting his best pal". Banksy is a chracter who doesn't get very developed ever, but does have a halarious opening scene where he gets called a 'tracer'. They argue about the girl, and i was genuinely engrossed in the scene, but it just gets cut short by the old "but i love her" thing which kind of ruins the tension.
Cut to her buying him a gift and, suprise suprise, he just has to pull over the car in the pouring rain to confess his love. The monologue is terrible. Truly poorly written and so much longer than it deserved. But wait, it gets worse. She runs back to him after clearly stating she's gay and kisses him in the pouring rain. It was my lowest point, it was as cliche as it gets. & truly not understanding of what a lesbian is.
Through the rest of the movie, they have some intellectual discussions but mostly she sobs (i think the writer believes all women do is cry), he gets mad that she slept with other people before him, Bansky mopes around, and her group of lesbian friends freak out that shes dating a man. I laughed. I mean this is a woman who clearly is open about her life and supposedly runs with an alternative crowd, yet her friends are not only all lesbian women but also are all "man-haters"? Please.
There was a decent speech by silent bob but other than that the back half of this movie just gets more boring and cliche as it goes. The bit about him proposing a three way was kind of funny, but they took it a little too seriously.
A lot of this movie did that, it had these fun twists and turns that would have landed really well had they not taken these underdeveloped and poorly understood relationships and concepts too seriously.
There's too much romance-cliches for it to be a cool avante movie like clerks, too many short-minded jokes to be a passable romance 20 years later, and much too romance to be a goofy "guy's" comedy.
Overall, 6/10. Raunchy and challenging, but offensive & unsuccesful in character/plot.
I had hope for this movie. But it let me down in so many ways.
First off, Holden. At the start, he's your average "witty, handsome, sort-of-nerdy" dude who is immediately smitten by your "quirky, adorable, given-up-on-love-but-in-a-smokes-cigs-and-definetly-knows-how-to-give-head-way" chick. His dialogue with her is perfect at the start and they have a great buildup to what is the reveal of her being lesbian.
The intensity of his hopeful romance is immediately smashed (and his punching bag of a best friend is halarious during the reveal, so entertained at his dismay and happy that he gets to watch the girls kiss) when she kisses a girl.
Immediately, Holden gets all the more relatable. This girl he can't have wanders into his life by showing up at his door and they exchange witty dialogue that ends up with them at the park, discussing her sexuality.
This is my favorite scene. The two of them tackle the meaning of sex, with her opening up to him about what she thinks is sex, which is... whatever anyone deems it to be. His preconcieved notions about women and sex are questioned, and seemingly, he's more open to them being just friends. This scene is beyond its years in it's risk taking and its eloquence in explaining to an immature male audience what sex really is about.
I was hopeful for the movie and Holden's character, but this is where they both start to turn for the worse.
One dumb montage later, and Holden doesn't care about the comic book anymore, just the girl. In the most out of touch way, the movie portrays her as "leading him on". She takes him out and giggles like a middle schooler, he takes her to an arcade and does the less physical version of (holding her waist and showing her how to swing a baseball bat), and they stare longing into each others eyes. Like, of course, that's what a lesbian would do.
Meanwhile, "oh no, hes neglecting his best pal". Banksy is a chracter who doesn't get very developed ever, but does have a halarious opening scene where he gets called a 'tracer'. They argue about the girl, and i was genuinely engrossed in the scene, but it just gets cut short by the old "but i love her" thing which kind of ruins the tension.
Cut to her buying him a gift and, suprise suprise, he just has to pull over the car in the pouring rain to confess his love. The monologue is terrible. Truly poorly written and so much longer than it deserved. But wait, it gets worse. She runs back to him after clearly stating she's gay and kisses him in the pouring rain. It was my lowest point, it was as cliche as it gets. & truly not understanding of what a lesbian is.
Through the rest of the movie, they have some intellectual discussions but mostly she sobs (i think the writer believes all women do is cry), he gets mad that she slept with other people before him, Bansky mopes around, and her group of lesbian friends freak out that shes dating a man. I laughed. I mean this is a woman who clearly is open about her life and supposedly runs with an alternative crowd, yet her friends are not only all lesbian women but also are all "man-haters"? Please.
There was a decent speech by silent bob but other than that the back half of this movie just gets more boring and cliche as it goes. The bit about him proposing a three way was kind of funny, but they took it a little too seriously.
A lot of this movie did that, it had these fun twists and turns that would have landed really well had they not taken these underdeveloped and poorly understood relationships and concepts too seriously.
There's too much romance-cliches for it to be a cool avante movie like clerks, too many short-minded jokes to be a passable romance 20 years later, and much too romance to be a goofy "guy's" comedy.
Overall, 6/10. Raunchy and challenging, but offensive & unsuccesful in character/plot.