I Saw A Film!

Watching Rob Lowe and Jim Belushi hamming around as a pair of exaggeratedly dumb men, telling unconvincing tales of lady conquest and bravado is painful, unfunny, and not at all sexy. And while this thing is a David Mamet play, I am quite surprised to see that that is the case. I should give the Rob Lowe character a bit of a break as he’s only half-hearted about Belushi’s toxic rhetoric. We all knew that guy, even if this particular version of him is so hyperbolic as to be laughable, and we all know the bozo never got laid.

Soon enough Demi Moore and Rob are shacking up together and lots of cute and unfortunate occurrences threaten the sweetness of their relationship. I had difficulty paying attention to it as it seemed to escalate very rapidly. There is a lot of yuppy party going and nice clothing, and a certain disapproval of friends, especially Belushi. And so you have it, the cute folks break up, and Lowe pursues his previously mentioned dream of opening a restaurant (obscenely called The Swallow) and eventually Demi and he run into each other at yet another social outing (these folks never miss a social opportunity) and a rekindled affair seems to be of the making.

Of course, I can’t help feeling like the socially poignant life lesson being rammed down our throats all the time is a case of threatening us about “meaningless” sexuality. I still insist that it’s fine to be promiscuous, and there’s nothing at all wrong with Henry Miller, despite the way our popular culture insists on training our behavior. At one point in the film we’re being teased with Demi and Rob’s use of the “L” word and Belushi’s character is in mock pain as he’s told Rob used it first. Love being the commodity of exchange presumed to be most wanted by the ladies. The old adage not expressed directly in the film is that women use sex to achieve devoted love, and men play the promise of such devotion as a lure to land the sex. And while this little gem seems to speak truth in our experiences, it’s primarily a self achieved result. We all want sex. We all want love. We all seek the pleasures of intimacy and company. And we’re taught useless and contradictory undermining philosophy about such. Young people are egotistical and love nothing more than a chance to be loudly indignant, and so we create a whirlpool of pleasure and emotional pain out of it.

This film adds no new wisdom to the fray. It instead just presents an example of a sort of typical affair between a couple of working cogs at an agency who have nothing more interesting about themselves than the fact that they’re attractive and live in a city. The film seems to just taunt us with our desire toward making Demi or Rob happy and draws on our own experiences to fill in the blanks of theirs. The story is a bit like putting on a clean pair of pants, there are no patches, no conditions, no quirks, no lives really being lead. There’re no karate or dance classes, there are no musical pursuits, there are no motorcycles being worked on, there are no naturalists doing photography, there are no people in this movie.

This thing is free on Prime and so forgettable you’ll be asking yourself – So *what* about last night??