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Lusty with whiskey, kitten-cute Lou pets and fiddles with Carla's thick blond locks. "Do you want to braid Carla's hair with me, Blake?" she asks. The preview for Two Girls and a Guy casts this innocent scene in a suggestive light, easily fueling viewers' imaginations with a movie title as subtle as Threesome and a seemingly sexy situation between two gorgeous women. The preview further stokes eager minds with visions of a ménage à trois when Lou (Natasha Gregson Wagner of Lost Highway) tells Blake that instead of two-timing, he could have saved them all heartache by involving the women in a Mormon-without-marriage relationship. "Like a happy family with no jealousy that does everything together," Lou offers. Much to the disappointment of KNRK ticket winners at last week's advance screening, the movie has no three-way. Not even close. Robert Downey Jr. plays Blake, a struggling actor whose biggest claim to fame is a couple of successful appearances on TheLarry Sanders Show. Oozing contentment, Blake comes home to his stunning loft, checks his mail, calls each of his girlfriends and his mother, plays and sings his favorite and ironically telling song "You Don't Know Me" on the beautiful baby grand. He doesn't notice the draft from a broken window until he's confronted by Carla (Heather Graham) and Lou. Carla and Lou just met on the front stoop and discovered that they were waiting for the same boyfriend to return from L.A. Blake has been leading a fantastical life, spending three nights of the week with each girl and the seventh with mom. By the time Blake walks in, Carla and Lou have compared notes and become increasingly enraged. Suddenly cornered, Blake presents them an absurd but brilliant argument for his actions, which only puts him deeper in the hole. Drug problems aside, Robert Downey Jr. is a genius actor. Physically he doesn't look great in the movie, but his presence dominates and carries the four-character film. Blake's defense for dishonesty is that he was being honest: He fell in love with both women at the same time and meant what he said and did to each. The film has several flaws. Instead of weighing in on monogamy and whether it matters, it becomes preoccupied with the issue of deceit. Obviously lying is wrong, but is it bad to be poly-amorous? The movie falls apart when Blake's protestations of equal love for Lou and Carla ring hollow; he is clearly more attracted to Carla. Another problem is Blake's obsession with his sick mother (who never appears). Rather than explaining himself and trying to make sense of his situation, he's on the phone with mom. Then again, he's a guy, and his idea of good sense is dramatically different from a woman's. Unsatisfied by Blake's laissez-faire approach to the predicament, the girls stick around and seek solace in a bottle of whiskey. This part is totally believable: Better judgment says they should leave and be done with him, but they were both in love and are looking for answers. The liquor goes straight to libido. While Lou dances by herself, Carla shoves Blake upstairs for oral pleasure. But Lou's not bitter; after all, Carla is beautiful and smart and knows how to take care of herself--Lou wouldn't mind a piece of her, either. Unfortunately for Lou and the audience, Carla and Blake aren't into that. After Lou's happy-family proposal falls flat, there's another round of Blake-berating and dubious confessions of unfaithfulness by all three. It seems nothing is solved, nor can it be solved. In addition to Downey's expert acting, the movie is laudable for its unpredictability, but it loses marks for its ambiguous ending. The fruitless closure of Two Girls and a Guy doesn't satisfy like other complicated romance films do--As Good as It Gets, Singles, Jerry Maguire--and not because it lacks a necessarily happy finish. Director James Toback, who has produced a mixed bag of movies including the forgettable The Pick-Up Artist and Academy Award-nominated Bugsy, wrote Two Girls in four days and shot it in 11. Maybe it was the hasty production, not the tangled subject matter, that resulted in such an incomplete film. |
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