Roger Dodger
Matinee with snacks
This is exactly the kind of movie that I write reviews for, hoping that people will go see it. None of my little group had heard of it at all, but we knew it had Campbell Scott involved and that was all the impetus we needed. The ad campaign (what there is of it) is unhelpful and not really very intriguing; despite Campbell's appeal to my crowd, he doesn't quite open a movie at the same level as Harrison Ford or Brad Pitt. Let me try and help. It's a small, ensemble comedy/drama with great characters, super dialogue, and a gradual, satisfying shift.
Roger (Scott) is a slick, jaded mid-thirties player, with the deadly combination of a razor sharp tongue and a marketing degree. Into his life drops Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), his desperately naïve and sweet nephew, who turns out to be the real hero of this movie. I can't even tell you how much I loved this movie - to review it is to ruin it. Roger is a bizarrely hilarious and arrogant prick, totally unlikable, yet irresistible. It was hard to hate him, being played by Scott, but he managed it. He reduces the world around him into sad loops of predictability, but he doesn't know real, actual people at all, not really. Roger is such a cad, and so adult, so experienced, and yet so clueless. Nick is such a naïf, so young, so willing to think the best of things, and yet so very wise, so natural. Jesse Eisenberg is perfect as Nick - his open, tabula rasa face and natural, awkward delivery endear him to you immediately. And despite his lack of knowledge, he is so much wiser than his uncle. Shortly thereafter, they meet Jennifer Beals and Elizabeth Berkely, and the real fun begins.
The only reason this film only gets Matinee and Snacks instead of Full Price Feature is because narratively, a couple of things are a little confusing, and cinematically, some of the more experimental use of focus and light occasionally detracted from the whole. For me. It felt like a documentary style film at times, and then other times it wandered into a P.T. Andersonesque unfocused, lingering moment. But I still loved it. Afterward, I was aglow for some time with the levels and layers and brilliant character moments that stuff this film. Roger's modern-day rake is to in tune with the messed up psychology of his prey and yet so dated, somehow, in his approach. Who is more immature? He does grow a heart at last, and maybe even a brain. His hypocrisy is summed up in the gloriously beautifully aging Isabella Rossellini.
The story is partially about the contrast between Nick and Roger, and partially a primer on how to win women. Not an MTV frat-house movie of the week primer on how to meet women, but a kind of ironic, bizarre roundabout non-example. While Roger is the master of the smoothness and getting under a woman's skin, he can't retain any lasting connection with her because she sees right through him. His modus operandi is to create a need for himself, and then just be himself. Nick wants to know how to meet women, because he wants to know their inner person (and also to get at their goodies, he's not a saint), and what he doesn't know is that he is already what a woman would want - he just needs a black background like his uncle for his little virgin white self to be visible. Just go see it.
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These reviews (c) 2002 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but just credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks. reviews@cinerina.com Check out previous reviews at: http://www.cinerina.com http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com - the Online Film Critics Society http://www.hsbr.net/reviews/karina/ - Hollywood Stock Exchange Brokerage Resource http://www.mediamotions.com and http://www.capitol-city.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 33278 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 806673 X-RT-TitleID: 1117415 X-RT-SourceID: 755 X-RT-AuthorID: 3661 X-RT-RatingText: 4.5/5
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