Here's a film that we should hate, but don't
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By Robert W. Butler
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
Sometimes a movie just shouldn't work. Intellectually it's all wrong.
And yet it does work, which leaves you wondering, "How'd they do that?"
That's the case with the evocatively titled "Good Dick," a hit at Sundance in 2008 and one of the oddest love stories you're likely to encounter.
Written by, directed by and starring Scotland's Marianna Palka (amazingly, she was only 26 when she filmed it) it's a highly unconventional romance that's constantly juggling comedy and tragedy.
You can see why it was deemed insufficiently commercial for a major theatrical release. Happily, it's now out on DVD.
Jason Ritter plays a young man (his character doesn't have a name, nor does Palka's) who works in a Los Angeles video store. Much of the film's humor comes from the interplay of the movie-obsessed geeks who work there, portrayed by Eric Edelstein, Martin Starr and Mark Webber.
Our protagonist is intrigued by the woman customer (Palka) who visits the store virtually every day. She wears baggy shorts and sweatshirts and seems permanently rumpled, rarely speaks and mostly checks out soft-core porn. When the boy attempts to engage her in conversation about the merits of a film she's preparing to rent, she looks at him like he's crazy.
Or is she the crazy one? Hard to say ... there's plenty to go around.
The boy, who lives out of his car, surreptitiously follows the girl to the apartment complex where she lives in frat-house squalor. She apparently spends her life watching movies and sleeping. No job. No friends. No other activities.
At first she reacts negatively to her stalker, at one point pulling a huge butcher knife on him. But he's so obviously unthreatening and puppy-dog friendly that eventually she allows him to regularly visit. He begins cleaning her apartment. Fixing her meals.
Before long he has moved in and they're sharing a bed, although platonically.
This begs the question: Who is this woman? What's her story? How can she afford this apartment? And why does she seem so withdrawn and emotionally stunted?
When the answer arrives it's too pat and obvious. Yet the film sucked me in. Part of that is due to Ritter's appealing boyishness (a genetic inheritance from his late father, John Ritter). But much credit goes to Palka, who beneath her character's weirdness exudes a core of sexuality that makes you sit up and take notice.
The DVD cover evokes the hit comedy "Juno," but that's really a case of false advertising. "Good Dick" is much darker and never overtly hilarious.
Still, it works. Wonder what Palka will give us next.
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(c) 2006, The Kansas City Star.
Visit The Star Web edition on the World Wide Web at http://www.kansascity.com.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
