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NOLAFugees.com Film Critic Feelicia Brown reviews the latest Woody Allen joint.
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We were supposed to catch the 4:45 showing of The Pink Panther. I picked the film because Steve Martin was so good next to Queen Latifah in Bringing Down the House, and besides, my man Feelix won’t cry over ninety minutes of Beyonce on the big screen. But guess what? We get to the Palace by 4:20, and the movie’s already started. The paper must have got the time mixed up. The next run wasn’t for another forty-five minutes, so I suggested Imagine Me & You, but my man Feelix wasn’t feeling it. What I should have done is tell him they have lesbians in that movie, but no sense in arguing. We settled on seeing Match Point.
Now here’s a movie about some serious shit. I thought Woody Allen was supposed to be funny, but by the time we left the Palace, I was sick to my stomach. It could have been the White Russian daiquiri—come to think of it, that drink didn’t taste right-- and the large popcorn, but I don’t think so since my constitution’s solid.
The story goes like this—white boy, I think he’s Irish, name’s Chris, moves to London and takes a job as a tennis pro at fancy country club. Apparently the boy’s got game and used to be some hot shot on the pro circuit, but never had the kind of luck to be really great. Quickly, he befriends one of club’s members, Alec, and for a while, you think Alec might be gay and coming on to your boy, but as it turns out, it’s just Alec’s accent that throws you off. Chris, the tennis pro, goes for the finer things in life— reading books by Dostoevsky, listening to opera, and of course, shopping. Made me think he was punk too, but that ain’t the case. Alec, remember, he’s the guy with money, starts inviting your boy to operas with the family and out to the family’s country place. Alec introduces your boy to Alec’s sister, Chloe, who’s pretty cute, and seems to be into Chris. They’re about the same age, and they visit museums together, chill together, but the first time your boy meets Alec’s fiancée, Nola, he gets sprung. Nola’s another white girl, but she’s from Colorado and like depressed or something because she can’t find an acting job.
Meanwhile Chloe hooks your boy up with a good job at her daddy’s company, and you see him shopping at Polo for sweaters. One day Chris runs in to Nola and waits for her while she has an audition. Your boy wants to do her like a dog, and you watch thinking, When are they going to get it on?
At the country house one day, Nola runs off into the rain, crying over some shit her mean-ass future mother-in-law says to her. And your boy Chris, he sees her outside soaking and wet and chases after her. Next thing you know, Chris and Nola are in some field doing the nasty. It’s raining and muddy, and I’m thinking, shit, he’s gonna get caught with his dick in her or he’s gonna get her into trouble because you know he ain’t bring no protection with him out there. So I ain’t the only one in the audience to be like, “Oh, damn.”
But then, as it turns out, nobody finds out. Time passes, and every now and then Chris runs into Nola. One night while they all chillin’ up in that box they got at the opera—Chris, Chloe, Alec, Nola and the two parents, your boy follows Nola outside the opera box and demands to see her again, and she’s all like no way because soon they’re going to be in-laws. Well, cut to your boy’s marriage to the rich girl, Chloe. They get hooked up with a nice crib overlooking that river in London—what they call it, the Thames? Then she says she wants to get pregnant, that she wants like three kids, and your boy’s like, Whoa, wait a minute. But what can he do? If he didn’t want to marry her, then he should have said no, shouldn’t have taken that job at her daddy’s company, shouldn’t have let all this happen, but you know your boy here, he likes living large.
Then he finds out that Alec and Nola break up, and your boy’s like, “Oh, shit, I coulda had that.” He goes looking for Nola, but he can’t find her. But one day they run into each other while Wifey’s trying to buy some art or something like that. And like all of a sudden, Chris gets sprung again. He gets Nola’s number, and they start having an affair. A couple of times he almost gets caught.
Then the inevitable happens: Nola gets pregnant and Wifey doesn’t because your boy’s been out fucking Nola way more often than he’s been fucking Wifey. Now Nola wants your boy to leave his wife and have the baby because the girl already had two abortions. He plays the game for a while, you know, sayin’ shit like, “Yeah, darling, I’m going to leave her. I just need to wait for the right time.” (They call each other “darling” in England.) So it gets to the point where Nola’s stalking your boy and Wifey’s going to find out. But your boy has another plan in mind.
Chris goes to the country house and gets a shotgun, the same one they use for shooting targets. And the whole audience is like, “Oh, no he’s not,” but when he shoots the landlady of Nola’s apartment building and then shoots Nola as she’s coming home to make it look like a break-in, we’re all like, “Oh, no he didn’t.” Police almost catch your boy, too, but you know how that goes, always looking for suspects.
And your boy there finally does get Wifey pregnant and it ends with them taking the new baby home to that pimping pad overlooking the Thames. Weird shit. Definitely not funny. I wonder if there ain’t something to that name Nola. Poor white girl got screwed. The whole thing makes me suspicious. Sometimes I just shake my head and say, Damn, white people crazy. Next time it’s Steve Martin and Beyonce in The Pink Panther.
Feelicia Brown lives Uptown, and covers cinema for NOLAFugees.com.
