Dir. Gary Winick, US, 2002, 78 mins
Cast:
Sigourney Weaver, Kate Mara, Bebe Neuwirth, Aaron Stanford In moneyed Manhattan, Voltaire-reading fifteen-year-old Oscar Grubman makes a play for his attractive stepmother. Gary Winick's low-budget, digital journey through Woody Allen land, the opening film of last year's Raindance Film Festival, looks good but retains interest largely due to an impressive cast. Aaron Stanford is credible in the lead role, portraying a mixture of teen over-confidence and acute awkwardness, and Sigourney Weaver is self-assured as Eve, the pointedly-named object of his affection. But the film's brightest moments feature comic actress Bebe Neuwirth as Eve's mischievous friend Diane. It is also Diane who, having seduced Oscar, tells her friend that she too would "consider a 15-year-old", an unsettling remark that highlights a hypocrisy about the sexual exploitation of boys, hinted at elsewhere in the film but never fully explored. Elizabeth Griffin |
