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The first drama from Dana Adam Shapiro (he directed the excellent doc Murderball) was screened in plenty of time for press deadlines, but I dropped the ball. Anyway, it turned out to be...problematic, let's say.
Monogamy
WW Critic's Score: 57
Monogamy: It's a sexy title because it suggests...maybe not monogamy? This promise is thwarted in all kinds of ways by Dana Adam Shapiro's drama, which features photographer Theo (Chris Messina) sabotaging his engagement to Nat (Rashida Jones) not by straying but with a compulsive implosion that reduces him to an anti-erotic lump, literally incapable of finishing a coherent sentence.
The central relationship is naturally performed, the couple obviously a fit: When Theo, who runs a boutique Brooklyn voyeur-for-hire shop, photographs a lithe blond client (Meital Dohan) masturbating herself on a park bench, both he and Nat devote most of their attention to the intrusion of a nearby squirrel, and their interplay evokes the genuine good humor of a yuppie Nick and Norah Charles. Theo's turn for the miserable and self-defeating is inexplicable, and feels less like standard dude commitment-phobia and more like an outbreak of undiagnosed, severe mental illness.
Which makes Monogamy no less watchable—okay, somewhat less watchable, since he keeps missing obvious clues about the girl he's paid to watch. (She has a wedding ring, he notes. The guy she blows in the alley has a wedding ring. They're both cheating!) Honestly, I don't understand the sudden glut of movies about shaggy men who won't settle down with beautiful women because they miss the thrill of the hunt. These dudes can't hunt; they can barely function. They're not unfaithful, just ungrateful. Have they seen any of the other movies about hapless assholes just like them? This guy's so infantile, the movie could be called Fetal Attraction.
Monogamy opens today at Living Room Theaters.
WWeek 2015