Loverboy (2004)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Film: C

 

 

Kyra Sedgwick takes one of the more interesting risks in her career as the over-possessive, creepy, unwise and psychotic Emily, who just wants to breed the perfect child, make sure it is a boy and nickname him Loverboy.  This 2004 drama was directed by Miss Sedgwick’s husband, the affable Kevin Bacon, trying once again to make the transition behind the camera.  Unfortunately, despite the bold and interesting thematics and material, the film never quite comes together.

 

Narrated with voiceovers from Emily, we see her low self-esteem and lust for certain men drive her to a series of unsafe sexual interludes that Hannah Shakespeare’s screenplay wants to make funny.  Her script is strong enough that a female point of view is as omnipresent as anything, which becomes the first reason why Bacon has trouble finding entry into the material with his own directorial sense, whatever that might amount to.  This leaves him just trying to get the best work possible out of Sedgwick.

 

However, even if this had a savvy female director, the results in the latter half are all downhill and the story ultimately does not have the guts to get as dark and deep as it should.  What should have been a character study of Emily instead makes her into a two-dimensional “wacko” as it were with no real insight into who she is, despite flashbacks that never work, made goofier and more problematic by Bacon and Marisa Tomei playing her parents in almost surreal sequences that further plasticize the whole thing.

 

Matt Dillon shows up playing the same Southern type we have seen before and appearances by Campbell Scott, Blair Brown and Oliver Platt raise hopes things will pick up.  They never do and the film becomes a great missed opportunity from the sheer inexperience of Bacon handling women’s or sexually complex material, to the film not knowing when to stop laughing off things and start dealing with them.  See the silly Patrick Dempsey comedy from 1989 with the same title instead.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is soft and has sometimes awkward form from cinematographer Nancy Schreiber.  This is a film that likes some tight shots, but they never amount to enough narratively.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix does not use surrounds much and dialogue is recorded in ways that are not always the clearest.  The only extra is Bacon’s audio commentary that shows how ambitious and sincere he was, despite the results.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo