It’s been a long time since I’ve done a movie review column, mostly because its been a long time since I’ve seen a movie; I don’t really like watching movies alone, and since Grace and I don’t always enjoy the same films and I was frightfully busy all last year, movies were just something that had been pushed way down in my time-triage hierarchy to somewhere below “clean the bathroom” and slightly above “stand outside and look up at the stars.” But now that I’m living with Jae I’ve had to make adjustments, and movies have re-entered the picture (at least on occasion); Saturday night we watched a film which she thought would interest me on two levels, and I was not disappointed.
My Normal (2009) is the story of Natalie, a young lesbian (Nicole LaLiberte) working as a dominatrix in New York; though she enjoys her work, she views it as a temporary gig on the way to a career in filmmaking. She befriends her drug dealer Noah (Ty Jones), who has aspirations to be a screenwriter himself; soon afterward she enters into a new relationship with Jasmine (Dawn Noel), whom she meets at a club. But while Noah accepts her work and the two of them collaborate on a screenplay based on her life, Jasmine finds herself increasingly troubled by Natalie’s work and sexuality, and pushes away from her out of fear and jealousy. Eventually, though, Natalie learns that her sex work is neither something to be ashamed of nor a secret impediment to her goals, but rather a source of skills and connections that will enable her to realize them.
This is an independent film with good production values and a talented cast; it has a few noticeable editing issues and a couple of clumsy plot contrivances (such as the fact that Natalie and her three dominatrix friends all leave the dungeon where they work to pursue various life paths at apparently the same time). It also suffers from a bit too much “Hollywoodness”: the first scene was way over the top and IMHO pandered too much to popular media BDSM stereotypes; the denizens of the lesbian bar were all young, attractive and conventionally-groomed; and the end was a bit too neat to be realistic (not to mention the fact that its use of recursion came across as cute rather than profound). But despite these problems it is a fun, light film with likable, engaging leads and a satisfying conclusion, and its pro-sex work, anti-stigma message make it a breath of fresh air. In a medium where most sex workers are portrayed as either pathetic victims or nigh-superhuman temptresses, the depiction of Natalie and her friends (and the enterprising drug dealer) as ordinary human beings doing their jobs and getting by like anyone else was both refreshing and inspiring; even the title carries the powerful message that no matter what outsiders may think of the lives of sex workers, they are absolutely normal for us.
Funny. I watch less than a dozen movies a year (I have no TV) but for the past few days I’ve been contemplating reviewing one for my blog. I probably won’t though because I can’t really recommend it. Its sole interesting idea is outweighed by its many faults.
My criticisms of Memento (2000) would have been very similar to your criticisms of My Normal, especially its intrusive “Hollywoodness”. In particular, its almost complete reliance on two streams of flashback sequences – one in colour going forwards in time and one in black and white going backwards – is painfully contrived and completely inappropriate to the central aspect of the plot (the protagonist can’t form long term memories).
There. I’ve got it out of my system now. Thanks for the slender excuse.
Never heard of this movie – I may check it out, the trailer on IMDB looks pretty good. 😀
Something much lighter is “A million ways to die in the West”. It features a sort of geek, his chum and the town whore who’s engaged to the chum, and the geeks squeeze, an out of town sharp-shooteress. The chum and the whore are saving themselves for marriage….Amusing brain candy.
I never heard of this film until now, and have to say that is much more appealing than James Cameron’s Avatar.
I loved it when you and contributors put up all those movies that featured whores. Now it seems just about every other movie I watch has a whore some where in the mix…remember the token black person, then the token guys and now, if not front and center, the token whore.