In the ritzy Beverly Hills neighborhood, Clare Lipkin (Jacqueline Bisset) is a widower haunted by the ghost of her husband. She and her daughter Zandra don't get along. Her friend Lisabeth Hepburn-Saravian (Mary Woronov) moves in as her home is getting fumigated. Lisabeth's brother Peter (Ed Begley Jr.) arrives for a visit with his new bride To-Bel. Juan (Robert Beltran) works for Clare and he's in debt to unsavory characters. Lisabeth's driver Frank suggests a different way to make money and then makes a bet with Juan on being the first to bed their employer.
Paul Bartel is a specific kind of filmmaker with his cast of actors, Woronov being his primary partner in crime. This is a social satire black comedy. Only I didn't laugh once. There are too many characters. It's an intertwining ball of sexual desires. The acting is deliberately broad and quite frankly deliberately bad. It gets tiring to watch so much deliberate fake acting that it becomes hard to distinguish from real bad acting. Rebecca Schaeffer's murder soon after the release also leaves a dark shadow hanging over this movie. This bundle of soapy interconnected mass of people holds no appeal. It's not surreal enough to be outrageous. It's not comedic enough to be funny. The social satire isn't sharp enough to bite. Bartel is not for everybody and in this case, it's not for me.
Paul Bartel is a specific kind of filmmaker with his cast of actors, Woronov being his primary partner in crime. This is a social satire black comedy. Only I didn't laugh once. There are too many characters. It's an intertwining ball of sexual desires. The acting is deliberately broad and quite frankly deliberately bad. It gets tiring to watch so much deliberate fake acting that it becomes hard to distinguish from real bad acting. Rebecca Schaeffer's murder soon after the release also leaves a dark shadow hanging over this movie. This bundle of soapy interconnected mass of people holds no appeal. It's not surreal enough to be outrageous. It's not comedic enough to be funny. The social satire isn't sharp enough to bite. Bartel is not for everybody and in this case, it's not for me.