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A movie within a movie within a movie
Confusing? That's Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal
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Nuggehalli Nigam
Sir Winston Churchill once famously described Russia as a 'A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.' It could just as well apply to Full Frontal.
This is a movie wrapped in a movie inside a movie. With its scenes alternating between grainy images shot on digital video and 35 mm lush cinematography, Full Frontal is not only an assault on our senses, but on our intelligence as well. It is a movie that teases the audience, and not in a way to pique their curiosity like Sex, Lies and Videotape did, but in an infuriating kind of way, as it is mostly incomprehensible.
Everyone in the movie has been invited to the birthday party of Hollywood producer Gus (David Duchovny of the X-Files) There is a magazine writer Carl (David Hyde, Pierce of Frasier) who is in an unhappy relationship with wife Lee (Catherine Keener, the queen bee of independent movies.) Lee is a human resources executive at a corporate behemoth, and is slowly coming apart. When she fires employees, she makes them stand on a chair and recite the names of all the countries in Africa, while also throwing a globe at them. Lee's sister Linda (Mary McCormack), between living the life of a professional masseuse, also fixes bed and breakfast dates with people she meets on the Net.
One of them is Arty/Ed (Enrico Colantinoj), a director of grungy plays in grubby theatres found only in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, we are introduced to two more characters played by Julia Roberts and Blair Underwood. Roberts and Underwood are two Hollywood actors playing journalist and actor respectively in a movie within this movie. There is also a movie being shot in this movie within a movie, in which Brad Pitt appears as himself.
Oh, before I forget, the opening credits and the final shots let us know that what we are watching is also a movie within which all the other movies are being filmed. Confusing? Sure. But the whole exercise would have been purposeful had there been a common thread running through them. The narrative is so disjointed that it leaves the audience wondering just what Steven Soderbergh was thinking when he made this movie.
When Steven Soderbergh made Sex, Lies and Videotape 13 years ago, he was still a largely unknown director. Sex made him famous and is believed by many to be a precursor to the fledging independent movie industry in the United States. Today, after Erin Brockovich, Traffic (Soderbergh got simultaneous Best Director nominations for the two movies) and Ocean's Eleven, Soderbergh is an A-list director in Hollywood. And his cache is reflected in the impressive list of stars and characters he has attracted to Full Frontal.
Despite these fine actors, the movie has nothing extraordinary to offer. The silver lining is that some emotions and themes explored in the movie are surprisingly resonant, largely due to the unaffected acting of the characters. The unhappy marriage between the magazine writer and the corporate executive underline the emotionally empty lives lead by professionals in Hollywood.
Lee's sister is representative of the new age youth dependent on the Net for love. And in the meantime submitting voluntarily to the sexual demands of Hollywood movers and shakers to earn some money. The small-time director is shown making a comedy play about Hitler called the Sound and the Fuhrer. (Hitler is seen breaking up with his girlfriend because he is distracted by his other responsibities.) The show is shoddily produced with a minimum of rehearsals and is poorly attended.
The actor playing Hitler (Nicky Katt, in a brilliantly essayed role) is as weird as they come --- it seems he has a penchant for drinking blood --- which makes the actress playing Eva Braun walk out of the play. The rehearsals and the backstage scenes look entirely real, and evoke the harsh realities of the small time LA theatre scene minus the glitz and the glitter.
Julia Roberts and Blair Underwood play different characters in the movie and in the movie within the movie. And the fun is not in what they are saying or doing, but how they are saying and doing it. In both roles, Roberts is smart, chic and confident. As a reporter, she is just a little in awe of Hollywood stars; as an actor, she treats Underwood as an equal coworker. Underwood is an upcoming black actor in both movies. In one, he is self-assured and charming; in the other, he comes across as a somewhat flawed person, influenced by his off-screen liaisons with Lee.
The title of the movie has little to do with the story or the characters in the movie. When Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times asked director Soderbergh how he came to name his movie Full Frontal, Soderbergh said it started out as an attempt to excite Harvey Weinstein of Miramax and was a "naked transparent marketing ploy." This attitude towards the title seems to have carried on to the plot line as well.
Full Frontal is a collage of disjointed plot lines. Each story standing on its own is essayed by fine actors with cackling dialogues, but these self-contained narratives lose their relevance and emotional impact when they are put together arbitrarily in the movie. After a while, the movie becomes a drag on the senses and risks losing the interest of even the most committed audience. Full Frontal entices the viewer to seek more and more explanations as the movie progresses, but gets out of hand and leaves the viewer less and less and less interested in the explanation towards the end.
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