What is this beyond-reason, Zenlike denial of self, masquerading as sophistication that the new Millennium is having us wallow in? No, Body Shots (1999) is NOT about the uselessness of the he said/she said accusations over drunken date rapes. Sure, that's a point worth making, but it really belongs in another movie all its own. This story, if the editor would just leave it alone, is about the inability of humans to live amongst each other with any intimacy.
The characters have more sex than they appear to know what to do with, because their sex lives are still at odds with who they are, or aspire to being. All natural warmth is absent. People vaguely comment about their constant loneliness, but it doesn't bother any one of them nearly enough.
Amanda Peet as Jane is much too stereotypically thin and toothy, and it's getting irritating to have that always work. Enough! Why can't she be cast as the girl who gets bedded and not called back?
Women who look like her in real life are being used like tissues, by men with I.Q.s lower than the tissue. Guys just like Rick (Sean Patrick Flanery), pathetic "professionals" who suck at even their own jobs and who are skating on bull, but somehow in the corrupt business world they're still paid enormous paychecks that they will never, ever, deserve.
So out here, not only is marriage on the way out, but so are male-female love relationships. That's what Body Shots is REALLY about. (I don't know how gay relationships are going; I can only wish them more luck.) Straight men are becoming totally lost, subhuman, autistic. Arguably abnormal. Alright, too many women are, as well. Maybe it's something in our food. Some late-onset autism cases were traced (in real life) to essentially food allergies, an inability to metabolize staple foods. Autism affects males 5 times as often as it does females, so maybe there's something to all this...
The ever-so-slightly-hopeful approach towards the only really normal (nice) guy of Body Shots, Shawn Denigan (Brad Rowe) is a) ineffectual because he's stopped fighting against the offensive/criminal hosing-guy jerk, Mike (Jerry O'Connell), and b) even his possible girlfriend, Sarah (Tara Reid), is too stupid to take him for what he is: a normal human being; complaining that his niceness is just too much for her! Hello! ... She even says an astoundingly stupid thing to camera: "And you just kinda fall into bed with them. It's safer. It's just sex, you know?" -No, you idiot, "Just sex" is diametrically opposed to "safe".
This is NOT sophistication. It's naïve. Getting involved is what we're supposed to be doing! We're supposed to accept people with faults, because the real world is not a virtual play-environment; that's not reality's job. If we over-control our relationships, how will we ever learn to be fair, as opposed to a little tool fit for no-one, like Sarah?
With characters this far out of whack (and it really doesn't matter what they look like, does it? They're all beautiful, unhappy, lonely idiots- I'm pretty sure that's the point), it's surprising and laughable that the healthiest "relationship" happens between the universally (amongst this ship of tools) disliked Trent (Ron Livingston), and the sex-goddess, Whitney (Emily Procter). When she gets kinky on him, he reacts with self-deprecating humour! I really like every bit of thesping Ron Livingston does in Body Shots. It's obvious that he's the best actor among them. The rest are playing characters that are not such a stretch. Livingston's performance is very natural and easy. I especially liked the way he talks about his "chew toy". (For those who don't know, Ron's the elder Livingston; his younger brother John did some nice work the same year in The Sterling Chase (1999). Both Livingston brothers are pretty charismatic).
But the best scene surely has to be the grittiest, and kudos to David McKenna for his gutsy original story, as well as Michael Cristofer for his direction. The staccato beat of drumsticks as Shawn allows pure horniness take him and his companion, Emily (Sybil Temchen), over on the bonnet of that car, is very, very effective; it's exactly how I would have done it (-the soundtrack; with the sticks, people!). Moreover, I really like that the scene happens to the supposedly shyest, most normal guy, Shawn. It gives him balance, and shows us Sarah's ridiculous underestimation of him.
But why does he claim he doesn't drink when he does? Is he a recovering alcoholic? If so, why is there no mention of that? ...Plus I have to take issue with the sudden appearance of the c*nd*m.
There was no time... I need to see the Director's Cut.
I am sorry that Emily (Sybil Temchen) feels ripped off, denuded, used, drunk, lost, afterwards. She hadn't chosen any of it. Yet again (I realize she talks about sometimes not wanting to choose so you don't have to berate yourself for how things turn out, but she still ends up berating herself, DOESN'T SHE?). So Emily and her self-esteem are back at square one. Watch her rueful facial reaction when Shawn rushes over to Sarah's side. Despite the shared night of shame between him and Emily, he can ignore it all, because he has someone else to care for, to go to; to cleanse his guilt. She DOESN'T. So Sybil Temchen is the other great thespian.
Once the date rape happens, it affects all the close friends. Specifically it suppresses the not-well-justified fledgling relationship between Jane and Rick, who are now in opposite camps. Irresponsibility leads to regret. And impotence. Note their ennui/chasm in bed.
So this is a good cautionary tale. Unfortunately things are already just as bad, or worse, in the real world, and everyone is asleep at the wheel. Sleepers, wake! Resist this much self-indulgence!
