So I'm looking for an oldie to watch on a boring afternoon. I ran into this one on YouTube and since I like Michael Cain I decided to give it a go. I wish I'd given it a miss, instead.
The film is nothing to write home about. But it's Sigourney Weaver's character that annoyed me beyond endurance. She plays Dr. Lauren Slaughter, a super intelligent, witty, educated woman, who is a research fellow at the Arab-Anglo Institute in London, and who decides to go into prostitution to fight boredom and make ends meet. At first you think she's honest and pragmatic about it. She's bored with her job, she needs the money, she turns tricks for an escort agency. That I could have respected, if that's the word I want.
Instead, she treats us to an endlessly snarly, hackneyed, pseudo- feminist attitude, which is painful to watch. She eschews makeup and nice clothes (her wits are enough to dazzle clients), and spouts commonplace, moral drivel to her "employers" and all her dates, as if to say, 'Look, I'm still intelligent, educated; and I'm a liberated woman, too, not an object.' It's not prostitution if you want to do it, you see. Men will respect you in the morning. Seriously? You're still turning tricks for money, dear. Men still pay to use your body.
You won't understand my complaint if you are a man, or if you are a modern-day feminist (all the latter understand is 'You don't criticize women. Ever.' And they think that's enough to make them good feminists). But I was annoyed and bored to half to death.
And in the end, in spite of all her intelligence, education, smart-as-a-whip comebacks ... Dr. Slaughter still gets conned, big time. Aww.
The film is nothing to write home about. But it's Sigourney Weaver's character that annoyed me beyond endurance. She plays Dr. Lauren Slaughter, a super intelligent, witty, educated woman, who is a research fellow at the Arab-Anglo Institute in London, and who decides to go into prostitution to fight boredom and make ends meet. At first you think she's honest and pragmatic about it. She's bored with her job, she needs the money, she turns tricks for an escort agency. That I could have respected, if that's the word I want.
Instead, she treats us to an endlessly snarly, hackneyed, pseudo- feminist attitude, which is painful to watch. She eschews makeup and nice clothes (her wits are enough to dazzle clients), and spouts commonplace, moral drivel to her "employers" and all her dates, as if to say, 'Look, I'm still intelligent, educated; and I'm a liberated woman, too, not an object.' It's not prostitution if you want to do it, you see. Men will respect you in the morning. Seriously? You're still turning tricks for money, dear. Men still pay to use your body.
You won't understand my complaint if you are a man, or if you are a modern-day feminist (all the latter understand is 'You don't criticize women. Ever.' And they think that's enough to make them good feminists). But I was annoyed and bored to half to death.
And in the end, in spite of all her intelligence, education, smart-as-a-whip comebacks ... Dr. Slaughter still gets conned, big time. Aww.