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Warning:
Minor spoilers ahead
The
most biting critique of American values this side of
Dogville, Pretty Persuasion is a dark,
vicious satire about the destructive power of high school's
pettiness and sexual hypocrisy. A film this daring,
hilarious and powerful, this full of ideas and emotions,
is one to be cherished and celebrated. It's best movie
I've seen so far this year, and exactly the sort of
thing our increasingly tame movie industry needs.
Much
has been said about the film's humor, which is unapologetically
politically incorrect and offensive. It establishes
this early on, with Kimberly (Evan Rachel Wood), a mature
and frighteningly intelligent 15-year-old high school
student, telling Randa (Adi Schnall), an Arab immigrant,
how glad she is to be white, a statement that she follows
with an exhaustive list of races in order of preference
- "If I couldn't be white, I'd like to be Asian,
because a lot of guys like them because they think they're
demure and subservient. But I don't think that's really
the truth, because I met this one Asian girl, and she
was a real bitch."
Some
have accused the film of being shocking just for the
hell of it, but every off-color joke in Pretty Persuasion
is backed by screenwriter Skander Halim's righteous
anger. This is an exceptionally personal, emotionally
charged film, and to suggest otherwise is hopelessly
misguided. More simply, however, if you're not easily
offended, the movie is just funny as all hell, filled
with memorable one-liners and snappy dialogue
After
losing the lead in The Diary of Anne Frank for
making an anti-Semitic remark, Kimberly, along with
Randa and friend Brittany (Elisabeth Harnois), sues
her drama teacher (Ron Livingston) for sexual harrassment,
hoping to kick-start her acting career through the case's
inevitable media coverage. Jane Krakowski plays Emily
Kline, a lesbian reporter who falls for Kimberly's manipulations
and pushes for her case. The film attacks the media
for its cynical exploitation of serious issues, showing
how Emily uses Kimberly just as much as Kimberly uses
her, leading to easy readings of the film as a satire
of the mass media's obsession with controversy.
And
it is that, but it is also so much more, and to view
it only on those simplistic terms is just asking to
be disappointed. Halim also turns both barrels on America's
sexual double-standard, in which boys are celebrated
but girls are punished for their carnal appetite. But
where the film's power comes from is its real subtext,
which suggests that a girl as mature and intelligent
as Kimberly has no chance of survival in the bitter,
vindictive world of high school.
Key
to the film's success is Halim and director Marcos Siega's
insistence on showing us where Kimberly is coming from.
Her father (James Woods, a riot) is a hateful bigot,
married to Kathy, a vapid sexpot clearly unfit to be
any sort of mother figure (Kimberly's constant quips
about Kathy's relationship with the family dog provide
many of the film's most hilarious lines), and her real
mother is completely distant, unaware of her daughter's
age or even the correct spelling of her name. Every
boy in her life has mistreated and used her; one boyfriend,
after having a perverted request graciously fulfilled,
breaks up with her and spreads vicious rumors, damaging
rumors. Finally, the drama teacher really is a bastard
with a thing for schoolgirls; and although he never
outright abuses any of the girls, an invasive "exercise"
that he forces Brittany to go through comes close.
Also
important is Wood's tour-de-force performance, easily
the finest of the year - possibly of the past several
- cementing her as not only the bravest actress of her
generation but also quite simply the best. Fiery and
eloquent, she sells her comedic lines with brilliant
timing and delivery ("Why must you criticize everything
in my Big Bag of Fun?") and grounds even her character's
most outrageous statements in emotional realism. As
Pretty Persuasion spirals toward its dark conclusion,
Wood shows her character's descent in all its pathetic,
wrenching sadness.
To
many critics, the serious last act seems like a shocking
change of pace and tone. But as a logical extension
of the film's subtext, these events take on new meaning,
and Pretty Persuasion becomes crushingly, devastatingly
powerful. As Kimberly watches herself on television,
her nihilisitc and destructive plan completed, tears
welling up in her eyes, we see how she has been slowly
corrupted and driven insane by her world. Pretty
Persuasion is a biting, hilarious tragedy, and it
is impossible to forget.
©
2005 Matt Noller, not that anyone would ever want to
steal this
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