Review

Review Date: 4-August-02
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Juicy

Full Frontal (2002)

My reactions to Steven Soderbergh's films have ranged from intense dislike ("The Limey"), to relative indifference ("Traffic"), to true love ("Out of Sight"), but in all cases I've noted with chagrin or admiration that he favors style over substance. So when I heard that he made "Full Frontal" on a very low budget over 3 weeks, with actors who tended to their own wardrobe and make-up, and that he shot a good part of it with a hand-held digital camera, I thought it was going to be a pretentious and either boring or annoying tribute to his own egotism, still buoyant from an Oscar win. But for some reason — call it a sense of obligation or morbid curiosity — I found myself trotting off to see it on opening weekend. And though I didn't know what to make of "Full Frontal" for most of the first half, it sure wasn't what I expected. After it made me both laugh and cry, I decided that this little vanity piece had a lot more meat on its bones than many more "serious" movies. It's the first Soderbergh picture where I've felt he had something to say and not just something to prove.

Being a Soderbergh piece, however, "Full Frontal" does have a number of clever twists and cool insider jokes. The movie moves back and forth between three different stories unfolding on a single day in Los Angeles: one involves the making of a film called "Rendezvous" starring beautiful people Francesca (Julia Roberts) and Calvin (Blair Underwood); one concerns an emotionally scarred executive, Lee (Catherine Keener), her writer husband Carl (David Hyde Pierce, excellent), and her lonely sister Linda (Mary McCormack); and the last depicts the production of a play called "The Sound and the Fuhrer," directed by Ed (Enrico Colantoni), an Internet romeo whose star (Nicky Katt) takes his role as Hitler a little too seriously. There are a few celebrity cameos as well, including Brad Pitt, Terence Stamp, and David Fincher, Soderbergh's comrade in the ranks of young, hipster directors. David Duchovny rounds out the cast as a Hollywood producer, Gus, whose 40th birthday is on the minds or social calendars of all of the other players.

The movie-within-a-movie premise of the Francesca/Calvin section is the weakest of the three, though it offers a nice opportunity for Roberts to skew her own high maintenance, superstar image and for Underwood to comment on the still limited opportunities for blacks in the movie business. While the Hitler section provides quite a few laughs, the heart of the film resides with Lee and Carl, whose joint marriage and individual lives are on the rocks, and with Linda, whose job as a masseuse demands a close physical contact with other people that starkly contrasts with the isolation of her personal life. The themes of identity and connection run throughout all the storylines. Both the "Rendezvous" sub-movie and Lee and Carl's marriage involve letters (linked thematically by bright red paper) written by women who cannot express their feelings face-to-face. Linda, who has never dated anyone for more than three months, has hooked up with Ed on the Internet and is already planning a future with him, even though she has lied about her name and age (as has he). Francesca the movie star blushes like a schoolgirl when a crew member from one of her earliest films reveals that he was smitten by her back when she was just herself and not a public figure. Gus finds sexual release more in the annihilation of self than in coupling with another person. Even the star of "The Sound and the Fuhrer" disappears behind his swastika and little mustache, so deep in his method acting that his director can't get at him. Everyone is starved for recognition and love, but they all erect barriers, consciously or unconsciously, that prevent them from achieving these ends.

Soderbergh juxtaposes the polished 35 mm film used for the "Rendezvous" scenes with very grainy (and occasionally ugly) video footage used for the "real life" scenes. Although this might reflect a smug tip of the hat to his early indie film roots, it works nicely to emphasize the emotional themes of the movie as well (much as Lars Von Trier's use of both 35 mm and video did in "Dancer in the Dark"). The overall impression one gets by watching these characters wrestling with each other and their own emotional needs is that life is messy and confusing and hard to navigate; in short, it's not like it is in the movies. In the glossy technicolor world, people fall in love and live happily ever after without ongoing angst or doubt or pain. In the grainy real-life world, a single day can almost break you, whether you're a movie star or a regular Joe.

Copyright © 2002 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.