FULL FRONTAL (2002) / **
Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Screenplay by Coleman Hough. Starring David Hyde Pierce, Catherine Keener, Mary McCormack. Running time: 101 minutes. Rated AA by the MFCB. Reviewed on October 26th, 2002.
By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN
Synopsis: "Full Frontal" tells the story of a group of people in Hollywood preparing to attend a producer's birthday party. Carl (Pierce) does not know that his wife, Linda (Keener), wants to divorce him. Linda's sister Lee (McCormack) is planning to fly to Tuscon to meet her Internet lover, unaware that he's actually a wannabe scriptwriter (Enrico Colantoni). Francesca (Julia Roberts) and Calvin (Blair Underwood) are starring in a movie together. Everything culminates in a revelation at the party itself.
Review: The biggest crime committed by "Full Frontal" is not that it's bad, but that it's just so boring. In attempting a digitally-shot, indie-type movie with a big name cast, Soderbergh seems to have forgotten that that simple gimmick, in of itself, is not enough to sustain interest. As such, we are subjected to a day in the life of a collection of rather tedious characters, from stereotypical sadsack Carl to his apparently schizophrenic wife Linda. One of the picture's chief conceits is that it includes footage shot in digital plus some captured on traditional 35mm. The latter are intended to be scenes taken from a movie, "Rendezvous", starring the characters played by Roberts and Underwood. But this film-within-a-film is so hokey and uninteresting that all it really serves to do is to remind us why the digital medium is best used sparingly, in appropriate pictures. Digital helps to emphasise stark, gritty, bare-bones reality, but when your movie is set amidst the glitter and phoniness of Hollywood, its employ becomes almost oxymoronic. "Full Frontal" is not a total loss, though. Nicky Katt is hilarious as an idiosyncratic actor playing Hitler, in scenes which could have been lifted out of "The Producers". And McCormack delivers a very natural performance as insecure Lee, the only particularly believable character in the entire script.
Copyright © 2002 Shannon Patrick Sullivan. Archived at The Popcorn Gallery, http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies.html
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