(MINOR SPOILERS) Okay, full disclosure: the writer, Skander Halim, is a friend of mine. But even though his particular brand of humo(u)r was immediately recognizable to me (and I'd seen his short film Family Dinner, which was the calling card for Persuasion), some of the funniest moments turned out to be James Woods' ad-libbed non sequiturs. Truthfully, all the humor is of a piece, a caustic willingness to eviscerate any last remaining pieties about the innocence of American girlhood.
Evan Rachel Wood turns in a small miracle of a performance as Kimberly, a rich girl who's more than precocious; she's got the fully formed subjectivity, sexual appetite, and ironic detachment of a grown woman. The piercing subtext of this character and her fate is that as a smart, mature young woman in the cruel, petty culture of American high school, she cannot survive intact. A bit like -- seriously, don't laugh -- the character of Sarah Jane in Sirk's Imitation of Life, Kimberly's clear-eyed picture of the way things work is a knowledge she can't fully capitalize upon. Instead, it effectively drives her insane.
I know this sounds like pretty heady stuff for a "teen comedy," and Pretty Persuasion is aiming for balls-out genre subversion of the sort a film like Election only began to approach. The downside is that the film's ambition outstrips its ability, and the dark turns it finally takes feel less organic, more argumentative, than they probably should. Nevertheless, this film's got guts, and its first two- thirds are, for the most part, unrelentingly funny.
Marcos Siega, moving over from TV and music videos, acquits himself quite well in his first feature outing. There's a flat, unfussy treatment of space and mise-en- scene throughout the film, along with fluid camera-work that slowly and subtly announces to the viewer that we're watching something teen-oriented but with higher aspirations. (Although the feeling is completely different, only Ghost World comes to mind as a fitting analogy.) Siega and Halim do not hit their every mark, and there are a few clunkers even in the comedy section (despite Adi Schnall's solid performance, the character of Randa is not hewn with the requisite care), but more often than not, Pretty Persuasion is tight, tough, and willing to smack you around a little bit. Admit you like it.
Evan Rachel Wood turns in a small miracle of a performance as Kimberly, a rich girl who's more than precocious; she's got the fully formed subjectivity, sexual appetite, and ironic detachment of a grown woman. The piercing subtext of this character and her fate is that as a smart, mature young woman in the cruel, petty culture of American high school, she cannot survive intact. A bit like -- seriously, don't laugh -- the character of Sarah Jane in Sirk's Imitation of Life, Kimberly's clear-eyed picture of the way things work is a knowledge she can't fully capitalize upon. Instead, it effectively drives her insane.
I know this sounds like pretty heady stuff for a "teen comedy," and Pretty Persuasion is aiming for balls-out genre subversion of the sort a film like Election only began to approach. The downside is that the film's ambition outstrips its ability, and the dark turns it finally takes feel less organic, more argumentative, than they probably should. Nevertheless, this film's got guts, and its first two- thirds are, for the most part, unrelentingly funny.
Marcos Siega, moving over from TV and music videos, acquits himself quite well in his first feature outing. There's a flat, unfussy treatment of space and mise-en- scene throughout the film, along with fluid camera-work that slowly and subtly announces to the viewer that we're watching something teen-oriented but with higher aspirations. (Although the feeling is completely different, only Ghost World comes to mind as a fitting analogy.) Siega and Halim do not hit their every mark, and there are a few clunkers even in the comedy section (despite Adi Schnall's solid performance, the character of Randa is not hewn with the requisite care), but more often than not, Pretty Persuasion is tight, tough, and willing to smack you around a little bit. Admit you like it.