When will I be loved?

Indecent Proposal meets Sex, Lies and Videotape with a slice of The Last Seduction. Young 30-something Vera (Campbell) is looking for a job in New York. Bright and intelligent, we even see her taking a shower in the very first scene.

For some reason beyond the rest of us, she’s going out with a two-bit hustler Ford (Weller) and you feel she could easily do better. Ford out to make a fast buck at any opportunity meets a wealthy Italian composer/musician Count Tommaso (Dominic Chianese) and the Count, who has met Vera, is suddenly haggling with Ford over a bid to lay Vera for $100,000. Somehow Ford manages to persuade Vera that its worth dropping her drawers in return for this sum but as the two men will later discover, Vera has her own agenda and it involves playing for significantly higher stakes. One’s reminded now of that perfume advert : “Why ? Because I’m worth it” !

The first half of James Toback’s drama is hard to follow, you get a dialogue bombardment, handheld camera and the idea that you’re eavesdropping on a host of conversations all of them generally just involving two people but in different combinations : Ford with his mate, Vera with a Professor (writer/director Toback himself), Ford with girl who he owes money to, Vera with a lesbian friend (she’s bi by the way). It seems loose, like improv, unscripted – it has a rawness to it but it also seems half-baked. In this first half, there’s also some surprising cameos such as Mike Tyson and Lori Singer appearing, both playing themselves.

You may also grow to feel there’s too much classical music on the soundtrack! There’s one really good scene when the Count and Vera are working out the terms of their engagement, and sounding each other out, that seems instantly better written.

The plot hinges on a crucial scene going a particular way and the weakness is that for it to go that way, characters behave differently to how you might expect. Overall the idea of some sort of sexually devious thriller involving money for sex is an ok one but its not developed enough here. Characters here are not that likeable – and crucially in films like The Last Seduction or Body Heat, there’s more subtlety, a better thought out story and crucially you have more sympathy for those involved .. plus what’s the title all about ? It certainly seems to have little relevance to the film.

Matt Arnoldi