*** Warning - contains (very) minor spoiler ***
First off, let me congratulate the acting staff of this movie - James Woods delivers his usual brilliant performance, Evan Rachel Wood shows even more promise and skill than she did in Thirteen, and the rest of the cast (Ron Livingston, Elisabeth Harnois, Adi Schnall (with too few lines), Selma Blair) did a fine job at bringing this to life.
The story is... well, it's almost beside the point. The social commentary carries the stage here - racism, hypocrisy, family communication (or the lack thereof), communication in general (ditto), liberal idiocy, conservative idiocy1 - they all get tweaked here, without anything sinking into mean-spiritedness. The Jewish boy who points out that the stereotype does not *entirely* apply to his father (shortly after performing a very stereotypical act of racial hatred himself, which gets overlooked by authorities), the Arab girl who is remarkably innocent (read: ignorant) and made vulnerable thereby, the promiscuous teen girl who uses her partners, rather than the usual "used by" view - all will make you laugh, and all are very un-PC.
The story, which provides a framework for this commentary and satire, holds up well enough. and the twists are going to surprise many - but as solid as it is, it pulls a weak third place to the acting and the satire. If Oscar Wilde were alive today, would he be doing stuff like this? Perhaps - but he'd have to have guts.
Well worth watching, even if finding it is a challenge.
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