Patrick Wilson, who has made a name for himself starring in films in which he is literally or symbolically castrated and/or left impotent ("Hard Candy", "Little Children", "Lakeview Terrace", "Watchmen"), stars in "Barry Munday", a film in which he finally fully loses his gonads.
Wilson plays Barry Munday, a serial womaniser who unfortunately suffers a vicious attack in which his manhood is mauled. The rest of the film finds him struggling to woo a dorky woman whom he impregnated before his crotch luggage went AWOL. She hates him because she rightfully views Barry as a lazy, filthy oaf. He loves her because, now emasculated, she's the only woman who can bear him a child. It's a good idea for a comedy, but director Chris D'Arienzo struggles with his jokes, and the film's quirkiness is strained, forced and second-hand.
Interestingly, the film suggests that the only thing keeping men from domestication (and monogamy) is the phallus. Remove the penis and the philanderer dies, shifting from a conqueror to a feminized male desperate for any woman he can get. In the western world, men are themselves slowly becoming "feminized". Some gender theorists deem this as being beneficial, as it prevents the resuscitation of stable gender orders (gender is a social construct). Others insist that "masculinity" isn't dying; today it simply "violates" you with perfume on, or even worse, via the invisible currents of binary transactions. The film goes into dark, interesting territory during its second half, but D'Arienzo's script isn't smart enough to do anything with the material. It's "Knocked Up" for the indie crowd.
7.9/10 – Worth one viewing.
Wilson plays Barry Munday, a serial womaniser who unfortunately suffers a vicious attack in which his manhood is mauled. The rest of the film finds him struggling to woo a dorky woman whom he impregnated before his crotch luggage went AWOL. She hates him because she rightfully views Barry as a lazy, filthy oaf. He loves her because, now emasculated, she's the only woman who can bear him a child. It's a good idea for a comedy, but director Chris D'Arienzo struggles with his jokes, and the film's quirkiness is strained, forced and second-hand.
Interestingly, the film suggests that the only thing keeping men from domestication (and monogamy) is the phallus. Remove the penis and the philanderer dies, shifting from a conqueror to a feminized male desperate for any woman he can get. In the western world, men are themselves slowly becoming "feminized". Some gender theorists deem this as being beneficial, as it prevents the resuscitation of stable gender orders (gender is a social construct). Others insist that "masculinity" isn't dying; today it simply "violates" you with perfume on, or even worse, via the invisible currents of binary transactions. The film goes into dark, interesting territory during its second half, but D'Arienzo's script isn't smart enough to do anything with the material. It's "Knocked Up" for the indie crowd.
7.9/10 – Worth one viewing.