Tell me a story

What’s it about? Lauren (played by Lauren Miller) is a brunette. She’s prim, she’s proper, she’s smart. She’s being kicked out of her apartment. Katie (played by Ari Graynor) is a blonde. She’s a bit of a wild child and she’s catty. She has a two bedroom apartment that she can no longer afford on her own. Jesse (played by Justin Long) is a mutual friend, and he sees an easy solution to both of their problems. But there’s a hitch: the first time he introduced them to each other it was a disaster. Let’s just say one of them ended up covered in the other’s urine.

Still they need each other, so they become roommates. And they do not get along. They argue all the time. They do all they can just to tolerate the other person’s presence. It doesn’t help that right after Lauren moves in, she loses her job. But like the saying goes, when door closes, another one opens, a sexier one. After all the late night moaning and dirty talk that Lauren hears coming out of Katie’s room, she discovers that Katie is a phone sex operator and not just a super freak. At first Lauren is somewhat disgusted. Phone sex is not a legitimate career to her. But then she can’t find another job, and she’s desperate, plus she has really good ideas on how she and Katie can make a lot of money working together. So together they start their own phone sex company.

Very quickly they’re making a lot of money, but more surprisingly they’re becoming friends. Ah sex, the great uniter. Even Lauren decides to shed her boring skin and take a shot at the dirty phone talk. And it seems that things are going great for them, but even a friendship built around sex and money and nice apartments isn’t perfect, and the two women are forced to question if they were ever even friends to begin with.

What did I think about it? I left the theater thinking this movie was just OK, but now after a week has gone by I think it was pretty good. I was obviously not the target audience for the film. It was written by two women, about two women, and aimed at women. And maybe that’s why it took me a little longer to appreciate it. But it was a funny movie with a very interesting premise.

Lauren Miller and Ari Graynor were both fun to watch, and they had good chemistry together. I didn’t really get pulled into the movie until they were living together, and I wasn’t hooked until they were both in on the phone sex business and becoming friends, which is odd because in movies conflict is usually more interesting than agreement, but seeing them become friends was actually rather entertaining. Still I will say that near the end of the second act, there were pacing issues and I found myself wondering when there was going be another conflict. Luckily I didn’t have to wait too long for it, though I had a slight problem with how easily that new conflict was resolved. Luckily (again) the resolution itself ended up being super funny. And clever. And quite adorable. It was really the perfect ending for this movie.

There was another teeny tiny problem I had with the For A Good Time, Call, which I probably shouldn’t even mention since it’s more a problem with me than the film, but here goes: Justin Long. For some reason I have this odd inability to see him as anyone other than Justin Long, no matter who he plays. I do not know why this happens, but it was no different for this movie.

The movie looks great. There are so many bright colors that the whole thing just pops with freshness. And the tone of the film matches its Willy Wonka color palette in that the story pops with humor. For a movie about phone-sex, it’s rather light-hearted. In fact a lot of the phone-sex scenes are played for humor. And even when the sex becomes more serious, the film plays it sensually instead of just trying to titillate. The director, a male, takes great care not create characters that exist to stroke the male audience’s libido. These women may be phone sex operators but they don’t come across as mere sex objects. I rather like how the characters embrace sex and don’t make it about shame or power or perversion. They seemed to have a healthy attitude about it all (though I suppose that is up to some debate depending on your own beliefs).

So what’s the bottom line? People in the theater were laughing a lot more than I was, and I laughed a considerable amount so it’s probably a very funny movie. Definitely for adults as it’s about sex and the language get very graphic at times. Happy watching. Enjoy the cameos. I did.

For A Good Time, Call
Director: Jamie Travis
Writers: Lauren Miller (Superbad, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Observe and Report, 50/50) and Katie Anne Naylon