TWO GIRLS AND A GUY (1998)
A Film Review by Ted Prigge
Copyright 1999 Ted Prigge
Writer/Director: James Toback
Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Heather Graham, Natasha Gregson Wagner
Robert Downey Jr. is so good in James Toback's "Two Girls and a Guy" that I fear if he had made his primary entrance even a minute later than he had (at around the 20 minute mark), and if I hadn't been tipped off to the strength of his performance by more than three people, I might have turned it off. Shaggy and completely uninhibited, Blake Allen (Downey) pops onto the screen and is so much fun to watch and to listen to that he gives the film a kind of immeadiacy that it probably wouldn't otherwise have, like he knows that this is his show and he better do his best to present it well. And what this basically is is a one-man show, a showcase for Downey to do the same schtick that he's done before in several other movies, sometimes great (the otherwise trite "Chaplin"), sometimes bad (his annoying supporting role in "Weird Science"), only here he's the center of attention, performing his one-man show for the entire audience, and easily winning them over with a certain type of charm that most of us didn't know he had. When he makes his first entrance, he brings life to the film, doing a five minute long bit where he goes through his routine of calling people up, and then performing a little song for himself, while looking into the mirror. And as the film goes on, we watch him as he tries to defend himself from the accusations that he is a lying mysoginist by the two people most close to him - he speaks quickly and seems to come up with lies that are not only plausible sounding (or at least half-way so), but also sincere.
In the film, his two girlfriends, who have no clue the other exist, meet eachother waiting for him on his doorstep. They break into his apartment, and wait for him to come home, and once he arrives, they individually confront him, and force him to tell the truth, which of course he cannot, but his lies sound so realistic, and we sense that out of the three of them, he's the one who's most hurt from it, and when he finally stares at himself in the mirror, without anyone looking on, and tells himself to shape up, we can't help but fall for it, even if we hate ourselves afterwards. That's what's great about this film. On the other hand, the plot itself is a little too cutesy and the writing never goes to the distance it really could. And it's too laid back when it should be manic. And there's too many instances when it's unbelievably derivative. And the two females aren't that interesting. While I could almost recommend this on the mere strength of the Downey Jr. performance, I just can't get past the fact that this seems too much like a film with one great thing to boast and a whole lot of other things to bitch about.
Just for example, the plot itself, while promising, is never fully explored. With roughly 85 minutes to film, we waste a whopping 20% of that on the long-winded exposition, where we meet the two girls and they discover eachother, only to discover that they're nothing more than either pretty dull (Carla, played by Heather Graham) or pretty annoying (Lou, played by Natasha Gregson Wagner). While the film is infatuated with the charming nightmare that is Blake and spares nearly no expense to show off how interesting he is, it barely discovers anything about the girls other than they are mere plot elements. They're there to either act accusatory or sexually arousing, and with no interest in them comes the round robin this film gets into: irate accusations, Blake's rapid defense, some more accusations, some more Blake defense, and then a cool down, followed by some brief and slight making up (where, at one point, Blake and Carla go into one of the bigger rooms in his astonishingly spacious apartment and service eachother, while Lou, well, dances in the other room). Round and round this goes, but we rarely learn more about Blake than he's never going to change no matter what he tells himself, while we learn nothing about the other two. While they aren't exactly awful or bad in their design, they're not even a million times as interesting as Blake is.
But Toback doesn't seem to mind. This is not only a lovely present to Downey, who starred in his 80s film, "The Pick-Up Artist," and has recently been besieged with bad press for his constant drug abuse and jail time, but it's also apparently very autobiographical. Toback has been immodest in his revelations of the sex life he had in his prime, which is quite extraordinary, and it's clear that Blake is supposed to be a twist on him merged with the rapid timing that Downey is well-known for. But he only goes halfway in destroying himself. He never truly makes us sympathize with his main character (we're more charmed by him), and he does tack on a nicely ambiguous ending that I almost fell for, but the accusations made aren't more than vulgar name-calling (if someone has that list of obsenities that he's called, please e-mail them to me), and by the end, Toback has included a fight scene where more is revealed about the other two characters that almost makes us really sympathize with him and revolt the other two. The twists that come out are unfair to the way this film should have been played out, and I almost wish that Toback had done a major rewrite, adding more and more complexity to his film. Why not gradually strip Blake of his protective coating, revealing the naked, frightened boy inside?
Filmed almost entirely within the confines of his apartment, and shot in real time, "Two Girls and a Guy" is less like a scathing character study, like the far superior "Deconstructing Harry," and more like a mediocre off-off-broadway play, albeit one with a phenomenal performance at the center. But there's nothing else there to really love about this film, and Downey becomes the only one who walks away with it with any real credibility. It's like seeing a remake of "A Streetcar Named Desire," but with Stanley being the only interesting aspect. Nevertheless, it is still a fairly entertaining movie. I enjoyed watching it for the most part (even if they made Blake's favorite song "You Don't Know Me" - disgraceful), but only in the way that I'd be interested in seeing any kind of sub-par piece of art just to see one great entity.
MY RATING (out of 4): **1/2
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