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Directed by: Wayne Wang Starring: Peter Sarsgaard, Molly Parker, Carla Gugino A brief summary of Wayne Wang's filmography: "Anywhere but Here," a maternity drama starring Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman; "Because of Winn-Dixie," a family film about a girl and her dog; and "The Center of the World"...an unrated digital-video glimpse at some of the thorny issues that arise when one exchanges sex for money. The funny thing is "The Center of the World" wasn't the first of those to be made. But I digress. Wang, armed with his digital video camera, an idea from video artist Miranda July and a couple of fearless young actors willing to do anything in service of the film, made a movie that's intriguing (especially when Gugino's character, Jerri, shows up). Young dot-com millionaire Richard (Sarsgaard) meets stripper Florence (Parker) and is so smitten he offers her $10,000 to spend a three-day weekend in Las Vegas with him. She agrees, but with some stipulations: no discussion of feelings, no kissing on the mouth and no penetration. Guess how many of those rules actually go unbroken. Much in the same vein as "When Will I Be Loved," which I reviewed last week, Wang comes up short where James Toback succeeded. For one, although Sarsgaard and Parker are obviously very comfortable with the camera and each other, Sarsgaard doesn't (or didn't four years ago, when this film was made) have the range required to make a convincing erotic partner or hold his own when his temper flares. He just sounds awkward cooing "can you feel me inside you?" and later hollerin' about how the world done him wrong. We're not given any reason to believe Florence would be attracted to such a puppy-dog nerd. Parker comes across a bit better, but her character's supposed to be some worldly temptress who brings men like moths to a flame in the strip club, but she's simply not very attractive. I hate to criticize a film for such shallow reasons, but if you want to be believable, don't hire an overfreckled waif to fill shoes that were obviously meant for a woman aware of how far men would go for her. In Jerri, however, Gugino finds the high note of the film about two thirds of the way through, playing a kinda-sorta prostitute friend of Florence who shows up unannounced at their hotel suite and gradually reveals herself to be a psycho on the verge of breakdown. Her brief role says more about how combustible people become when sex and money are mixed than the 80 minutes of screen time in which she doesn't appear, and highlights how pedestrian the rest of the film is. It's a creepy, creepy performance and worth the price of rental alone. Note: You will probably have to get this from Netflix or through other indie channels because it surrendered its NC-17, received due to an early shot of a stripper penetrating herself with a lollipop, which Artisan refused to cut. I don't know whether to congratulate Artisan for not budging on such a minor point, complain that they didn't edit it since it adds virtually nothing to the film or be annoyed with the MPAA for giving it an NC-17 only for that shot despite all of the fairly explicit depictions of sexual acts in the remainder of the film (which includes a handjob, a rimjob, sex, sex, more sex and sex that might as well be rape). Christ, the ratings system is absurd. RATING: 3.0 PROS: Gugino creates one of the most menacing characters in recent memory, the actors are fearless, a hypnotic first hour CONS: Sarsgaard isn't very good, Parker isn't very convincing, last half-hour drags, cinematography sucks even for digital video ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240402/ Keanu Grieves fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Nov 7, 2005 |
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Nov 7, 2005 23:47
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 19:06 |
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I'll mostly agree. I saw it many years ago, in the theater, and I do remember a painfully slow pace, along with really really awful cinematography. However, the tension between Sarsgaard and Parker is almost palpable sometimes. The mix of money, sex, intimacy (or the lack thereof), and loneliness is pretty powerful. It's sort of a rollercoaster, I felt pretty awful for Sarsgaard and Parker, and then they both acted like pricks a lot too. As a side note, the theater where I saw it (the Esquire, Cincinnati) cut out the lollipop penetratrion scene and has been banned from showing Aritsan films ever since. 3.5
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Nov 11, 2005 17:43
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The movie was all right. The acting was great but the pace could have been improved a bit. I also think that the cinematography was pretty lovely and didn't help the movie at all. I disagree about your comment about Molly Parker though. Firstly, she is not bad looking at all (beauty, eye, beholder, etc.) but more importantly you don't have to be the epitome of beauty to be really loving sexy which her character was. Parker oozed sex in this movie. It was totally emotionless sex but I think her character definately fit comfortably within the context of the film. Peter Sarsgaard did an awesome job, so much so that I wanted to jump into my television and kick his stupid rear end because I loathed his character so much. 3.0 out of 5.
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Nov 15, 2005 09:53
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