Joshua Reviews Daisy von Scherler Mayer’s Some Girl(s) [Theatrical Review]

Reading the log line for the recently released adaptation of Neil LaBute’s beloved stage play Some Girl(s), one can’t help but audibly groan at how sterile its romantic musings sound.

Starring Adam Brody, Some Girl(s) follows the tale of the never-named Man, who with a wedding on the horizon, sees it fitting to dial up a handful of his ex-beaus, trying to reconcile past problems with what he deems the five most influential women he’s ever fallen for. Be it the older fellow teacher he began seeing during his first teaching stint in Boston or a high school sweetheart, LaBute’s play, and his subsequent screenplay adaptation (which in turn was directed by Daisy von Scherler Mayer), is all but cliché, even if it doesn’t ultimately culminate in the type of deeply moving gender sadism that the playwright is most well known for.

Oddly enough, Scherler Mayer proves to be the perfect voice for this type of project, at least cinematically. Breaking up each meeting with musically charged interludes, the film never truly falls into the mud despite its strikingly small and intimate aesthetic. Beautifully shot, the picture very much feels like a filmed stage play, but with the cast as superb as it truly is, it still feels starkly cinematic. Partly due to the inherent tension within each meeting and partly due to various bits of “action” allotted here (cigarette smoke being blown, for example), the film’s pacing is brisk and lively, even despite its shockingly long runtime. Only occasionally feeling long in the tooth, Scherler Mayer’s picture feels and sounds like perfect fodder for a much shorter picture, but the director, and her cast, really add a great deal of depth to an otherwise minor piece of work from LaBute.

And, for all intents and purposes, the performances (as they really should) save this film. Brody is fine here as Man, playing a completely and utterly unlikeable asshat of a “man,” with all the self important slime and lack of self-reflection that you’d imagine coming from a New Yorker fiction writer. We only hear glimpses from the women about a story he recently wrote, chronicling his adventures with them, and while it may seem like an unfair portrait being painted, Brody’s character does nothing to help himself. Again, he’s great, however, the supporting cast is what will have people buzzing if they’d just give this thing a chance (it did, full disclosure, open in LA and New York at the end of June).

Leading the way here has to be Zoe Kazan, giving a deeply moving performance here as Reggie. Carrying with her some real skeletons in her closet, Kazan gives the character a manic energy that is both enchanting at the very beginning, and utterly devastating as the history begins to be revealed. It’s the one narrative most people will be talking about, and its easily the crowning jewel of the film. Kristen Bell is the best she’s been in a very, very, long time, and the trio of Jennifer Morrison, Mia Maestro and Emily Watson all give top notch performances as various women our lead has encountered. They all bring out the absolute worst in Brody’s Man, and yet all have a deeply melancholic air about them (save for Kazan’s character, who ultimately has a much more visceral response to their encounter).

Ostensibly about the damage one can afflict on another emotionally (Bell’s character unfurls a monologue about this topic in what may be the film’s most distilled explanation of its themes), the picture is, at its best, not something that thrives on thematic relevance as it does character revelations. For its 90 minute runtime, the micro nature of the film’s production may fall a tad flat, but when the film kicks it into high gear, it becomes a powerful and intriguing look at an “emotional terrorist” trying to make amends, but for all the wrong, self absorbed reasons. A tad one note, the film will thrill fans of great performances, but may leave many icy cold.