Movies into Film
A FIRST KISS FROM JENNIFER BEALS
directed by Dylan
Kidd
Roger
Dodger
USA, 2002
Beals, Eisenberg & Berkley: before the big smooch (Photo: Artisan Entertainment)
On the heels of a tedious evening fraught with subtitled bawdy songs, untranslatable deep belching, and enough crocodile tears to topple an igloo—I’m speaking of the overrated Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner),not my personal life—I was more than happy to plunk down in modern Manhattan for a scant hour and forty-five minutes of sharp, snappy repartee in the forthcoming Roger Dodger. Awful title aside, this feature film debut from writer-director Dylan Kidd is a potent urban charm.
In the opening scene, rakishly handsome Roger Swanson (Campbell Scott) holds a small circle of sophisticates spellbound as he riffs on the “utility” of the male gender; he argues that as technology renders a man’s role in procreation obsolete, women will ultimately subjugate men. (This alone should win over the lesbian-intensive Port Townsend movie-going public.) Puffing vigorously on a cigarette, Roger dazzles his friends point by point, and they applaud him. A mere description doesn’t convey the electricity, the crackle of this verbal joust. When and where may I have lunch with these people, I immediately wanted to know. And how does Isabella Rossellini (who’s seated at the table) manage to look so stylish in her unflattering Annie Hall suit and pageboy haircut?
Later, when we observe Roger alone in a succession of bars, it becomes apparent how empty, dead, and shallow his waking life really is. For his own amusement, he spins socially reductive theories to the women he encounters: “The thing you call your personality can actually be traced back to a set of postures from Vanity Fair articles; your choice of sexual partners tonight was predetermined months ago by an account executive at Young & Rubicam.”
Campbell Scott, a refreshingly intelligent screen presence, inhabits this character so convincingly that it may be tough to accept Scott as anyone else. In Roger Swanson, Kidd and Scott have created a hectoring monstrosity that would do Edward Albee proud. The sudden arrival of Nick, Roger’s 16-year-old nephew, ushers in a whole slew of opportunities for this jaded misanthrope to spiral destructively.
Campbell Scott and Jesse Eisenberg (Photo: Artisan Entertainment)
In New York for a college interview, Nick (Jesse Eisenberg, in a superb debut) asks his worldly-wise uncle for advice about women. Of their ensuing nocturnal journey, I shall say just this: in the film’s giddiest passage, these two archetypes share a bottle of wine and a park bench with a pair of women (Elizabeth Berkley and Jennifer Beals) they met in a bar. The foursome begins to swap stories about when and where they lost their virginity. At Nick’s turn, he shyly, reluctantly admits that he’s never been kissed. And then something understatedly goose-bumpy happens. Ms. Beals (way sexier at almost 40 than she ever was in her Flashdance prime) takes young Mr. Eisenberg to her side and plants a long, slow, passionate kiss. Kidd doesn’t trivialize the tenderness of this gesture; he allows a spell to be woven, however briefly.
The unsentimental approach this film takes to material usually treated in a maudlin or sensationalistic way left me almost as breathless as the Beals-Eisenberg park bench exchange. Roger Dodger opens later this fall in what will likely be a limited distribution: wherever it plays, seek it out. – NPT (This was my first published film review, from the September 2002 issue of Vigilance.)
August 2002
Movies into Film
© N.P. Thompson, 2004
npt [at] moviesintofilm [dot] com