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11/15/02

1 hr. 44 min.
Starring: Campbell Scott, Jesse Eisenberg, Isabella Rossellini, Jennifer Beals, Elizabeth Berkley, Ben Shenkman, Mina Badie, Chris Stack
Directed by: Dylan Kidd

Rating: *** 1/2 stars (out of 4 stars)

For what it’s worth, this current movie season has produced some halfway decent teen coming-of-age sagas that surprisingly demonstrate some three-dimensional luster. Gary Winick’s Tadpole turned out to be quite a revelation in its seriocomic turn of a youngster craving after his pretty stepmother only to carry out an affair with her promiscuous hot-to-trot best friend. In the astonishingly underrated Burr Steers’ youth-oriented disillusionment drama Igby Goes Down, we see the youthful protagonist succumb to the malaise of his privileged yet bored existence. Well, it’s encouraging to see the streak continue with first-time writer-director Dylan Kidd’s delightfully toxic and edgy-minded teen sex drama Roger Dodger. Kidd’s wickedly irreverent and succulent narrative cunningly cuts to the quick in the way it examines the boorish behavior of male mischievousness that ultimately serves as the needed comeuppance to redefine their consciousness.

Campbell Scott (offspring of the late great Oscar-winning actor George C. Scott) delivers an impressive performance as the roguish eponymous lead. Devilish Manhattan-based womanizer Roger is a handsome advertising copywriter with a Neanderthal perspective toward the female species. Roger is bright and quite adventurous but possesses that “legend in his own mind” cockiness about himself. This arrogant cad swears he’s God’s gift to women and given his pedigree of a sly charming persona, he may have some legitimate reason to back up this personal claim. Swimming in the choppy waters of sexual conquest is nothing new to the over-confident Roger. To him, it’s a compelling game worth playing sans a structured rulebook. Slick Roger would like to think that he’s as smooth as a baby’s bottom. But there lies an underlying misogynistic rage that consumes the self-assured swinger Roger with the potential for daunting overtones.

No sooner after Roger’s boss (Isabella Rossellini) calls off the office love affair, the self-appointed loverboy receives an unexpected visit from his 16-year old nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg, sibling of cute Pepsi pitch tyke Hallie Eisenberg). Nick, who’s in town from Ohio awaiting an interview at Columbia, is overly hormonal and wants to experience the pleasures of pleasing and being pleased by the babes. And horny Nick wants that certain carnal knowledge from his roving eye ladies man uncle. If anyone can give him the advice to sow his youthful wild oats then it would be his wily and worldly Uncle Roger-master “chick magnet” personified.

It doesn’t take long for the wayward Roger to school his eager virginal teen charge and introduce him to corrupt ideas about “scooping” hot honeys. Roger’s twisted philosophy about hooking a “hottie” is both deeply disturbing and uproarious. But the scary thing in regards to Roger’s credo in obtaining some curvy “snatch” is that this concept is oddly compared to following some regimented and religious guideline he swears to with peculiar spiritual allegiance. Anyway, Roger offers his sordid take to Nick on the virtues of “do’s and don’ts” when assessing the signals of how to score with major babe-meat in singles bars. In short, Roger is the shameless lusty and unctuous Obi Wan Kanobi to Nick’s disillusioned and deprived Luke Skywalker.

Apparently Roger’s depravity is getting the best of him yet. The clueless Romeo actually introduces the underage Nick to the singles bar scene where they both manage to pick up a couple of well-informed beauties (Elizabeth Berkley and Jennifer Beals). The gorgeous gals respond to the bar-hopping tandem with mixed results. They’re impressed by the sweetness and novice romanticism of Nick’s inexperience. As for the effectiveness of Roger’s divisive influence, the observant cutie pies ultimately find themselves wincing at the ugliness behind this idiot’s faulty and misguided thinking in not recognizing the cohesiveness of male-female relations. Ironically, “student” Nick graded much higher in his dalliance with the shrewd hot-looking women while “teacher” Roger flunked with flying colors based on his so-called “insights”. Soon the prancing pair move onward into the seedy New York nightlife looking for steamy encounters to satisfy a twitchy tendency to get loaded and laid. And thus the chaotic search lingers on as the desperate Roger spearheads a dark and dubious field trip that will soon trigger a rude awakening. Eventually, the penchant for looking for love in all the wrong places will put every antiquated notion of carousing into a whole new realm of forethought.

The direction and scripting by Kidd is solidly crafted. Roger Dodger is a story that refreshingly embraces the elements of sexual cynicism, bitterness and denial and wraps it up in a conveniently sardonic and scathing ball of confusion. Kidd's off kilter portrait of fragile male hedonism at the expense of hidden resentment aimed at the feminine psyche is wickedly funny and strangely poignant. The choice to use a handheld camera was savvy because Kidd literally puts us right into the smoky atmosphere of Roger and Nick’s desperation mode of bimbos and booze. The jittery camerawork pretty much reflects the out-of-control intimacy of Roger’s surreal hedonistic idealism. The unabashed doltish uncle-naïve nephew angle being portrayed is absolutely revealing because we get a peek at a family that’s clearly dysfunctional and unorthodox yet uniquely devoted to one another despite their loose-minded moral code.

Scott puts in a memorable performance as a hellraiser whose obvious insecurity with the opposite sex dually serves as the proud posterboy for being a swaggering rascal who seemingly has all the answers without really knowing what the questions are. Scott’s titular character is indeed a dodger because he refuses to see the real picture behind his subtle turmoil. There’s an inner struggle that may go beyond his views of the warped sexual doctrine that he sticks to constantly much like a negligee does to a sweaty supermodel. Scott is a bona fide cretin but we still can’t help but to like and root for this lost soul. And Eisenberg is thoroughly on the money as the impressionable Nick who adequately nails the disenchantment of an adolescent trying to grasp on to his growing pains by sheepishly entering an advanced world of maturity that he may not be arguably prepared to deal with.

If anything, Roger Dodger reminds us of the everlasting fascination with the gender gap and the explosive sexual attitudes that exist amid all the tension and expectation that we instinctively place on ourselves as complex, amorous human beings. Kidd’s exposition of sexual politics among inquisitive participants who aren’t aware of their own victimization is notably stark and piercing. Roger Dodger is a topsy-turvy treat with brimming provocative humor as its caustic standby.