Two Girls and a Guy dvd movie.|
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List Price: $9.98 Our Price: $9.98 Features • NTSC In Theaters : 24 April, 1998 DVD Release : 21 May, 2002 |
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Two Girls and a Guy description Substitute "Gals" for "Girls" and you might mistake this for one of those romantic-comedy trifles they cranked out during World War II. Nothing could be further from the truth, though the film does have a lot to say about modern romance, and you'll laugh--while also gasping--frequently as the film unreels over a riveting hour and a half. Two very different but equally smashing young women find themselves sharing the sidewalk outside a Soho apartment. Both blond Carla (Heather Graham, pre-Boogie Nights) and the dark-haired Lou (Natasha Gregson Wagner, daughter of Natalie Wood) are waiting for the same guy, an actor named Blake (Robert Downey Jr.), who--unbeknownst to either--has been sleeping with both of them for the past year. They break into Blake's pad and trade can-you-beat-that? anecdotes of his duplicity while waiting for him to show. Show he eventually does, and the mind games begin. All three players are terrific, with Wagner enjoying a slight edge over indie veteran Graham because her character is fiercer and she's a new screen presence. But it's Downey who rules, partly because director James Toback wrote the script in direct response to seeing his old pal (Downey had starred in his 1987 movie The Pick-Up Artist) in a jail-house news feed after his first well-publicized arrest on drug charges. Actually, Downey's most amazing scene--a long soliloquy in front of a mirror--was largely improvised; it's a passage of monumental self-deception, self-revelation, and sheer genius. As exasperating as it is compelling, Two Girls and a Guy is one of the most provocative films of the '90s. --Richard T. Jameson |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | An Excellent Film If You Don't Mind Thinking A Little Bit |
| Why does Downey Jr. lie to the two girls? Here's my take on it. Not because he couldn't get both of them without lying: after all, neither of the girls are married to him, and he could've openly had two or three semi-serious girlfriends and a few groupies also as a bachelor and up-and-coming star-on-the-rise actor starting to get steady work. He lied because he wanted not just superficial sex but two serious and involved relationships at the same time, two real girlfriends at the same time, almost like bigamy; he didn't lie to get the girls to physically put-out, he lied to get them to spiritually commit a deeper part of themselves that they otherwise wouldn't. So when he says that he loved both of them equally (or almost equally), he pretty much means it; and when he had said to each girl that other girls now disgust him, he really meant that too, in the spiritual sense that is about all other girls except the two main ones he was involved with. He may have had a few mainly physical encounters but spiritually and romantically he's basically tied to these two women, one of whom will eventually have to go because of time constraints or a slightly higher level of incompatibility. The same would obviously apply if a girl had willingly put herself in this rather flattering dilemma (as the poster for Truffaut's Jules et Jim' on the wall constantly implies, a film in which there was no deception but which ended tragically because Jeanne Moreau refused to give up her irrational desire to be loved by more than one man until she turned off both of them).
What I think Toback is trying to do is show people ways of communicating they haven't considered or have been programmed to overlook. He's trying to say that this situation doesn't have to end up negatively or in some kind of overblown melodrama, though it's definitely prime material for farce. Every attempt at taking it to that cliche area of hurt and shattered and devastated feelings, and overblown psychotic role playing imposed by half-baked and prejudiced societal rules is shown to be not only ridiculous but transcendable by only a little strength and street-or-book-or-other-wise perspective. Of course, the Natasha Gregson Wagner character is the one that shows the most strength because she gets the short end and refuses to stoop to fighting for her man with Heather Graham; not only that, she doesn't even break relations with Graham and asks her to call her. . In 99 out of a hundered other films as soon as Graham and Downey start getting it on in that other room, Gregson Wagner would've broken a whole bunch of Downey's bric-a-brac-furniture, stormed out the apartment cursing and slammed the door, or, barged in on them and had a tantrum wanting to kill both of them. But is that kind of impulsive over-reaction all human beings are capable of? No, and Toback shows that sex outside a serious relationship, even if it's with someone in an equally serious relatoinship who is a direct threat, is not the end of the world and it can be dealt with intelligently and calmly, not through some ridiculous tantrum. What Toback is laying down here in this film isn't anything new but basically a variation on what many widely read books of the late '60s and early '70s dealt with, books like Pairing,' Open Marriage,' etc. They dealt with the fact that sexual desires don't go away after marriage or the attainment of a serious relationship and should not be restricted because that creates more problems than it solves. Desires are then only willingly & voluntarily not acted upon by the parties concerned because the time spent pursuing them could be better and more efficiently spent in the main relationship which is already a source of much joy. They emphasize the importance of the strength of the main relationship so that even if the desires are acted upon physically, that's where it usually ends and the level of intimacy achieved doesn't seem to be worth it compared to the main relationship, therefore further reinforcing the main bond. In other words, a positively re-inforcing circle instead of vicious one. If there's no strong relationship aside from the strictly physical to hold a man and a woman together, then that couple has no business pretending they have a real relationship anyway and traditional restraints will make cheating more attractive, not less. The problem, of course, is always TIME, all serious relationships in the end end up pretty much monogamous (in spirit if not exactly 100% in physical fact) because a serious relationship takes work, real work, and there is simply too much time and energy required to carry on even as little as two serious love affairs at once on a high level. They based these theories on research into why so many traditional marriages failed. People sneer at these theories now without even stopping to think but very little has changed and much has been reversed since the days of the sexual revolution. It may even be worse now than the 50s and 60s. If you take a look around society at traditional marriages that have strict restrictions, you'll probably find that for every relatively good relationship that hasn't gone sour yet, there are at least 10 happy-to-be-mediocre lukewarm ones maintained for the sake of appearances that can be seen through in two seconds, and 10 more that are already dead and headed for divorce or have gone beyond the stultifying effects of a 'closed relationship' to cheating and deception to find some 'happiness-fix' on the side. In Toback's film, Downey's deception leaves Natasha Gregson Wagner out in the cold but she's strong enough to not give too much of a damn about someone like Downey whose lying has put her in a position to get hurt because she happens to be a tad less interesting to him than Heather Graham who has just reclaimed him by giving him sex; she's strong enough to not show her hurt for his satisfaction or to stoop to wanting to fight for the little weasel with Graham. She stays above it, talks things over a while, wishes them the best and moves on. Not realistic? If we're talking in general terms absolutely not; but in individual terms, absolutely yes. There are probably 9 or 10 people out of a hundred strong enough to pull a Natasha Gregson Wagner exit. And the value of Toback's film is that it shows that rather than the 90 ways how it ought to end in farce and total disaster. Therefore, despite some flaws, Toback's film is highly recommended because it breaks cliches at every turn in the dialogue and tries to promote intelligent ways as opposed to culturally pre-programmed ones of dealing with painful dilemmas. All you weak people out there with your love-hate over-reaction programming and jealous rages, watch and learn how to be more sophisticated, strong, considerate, compassionate, hip, cool and classy. Who said 1960s ideals are dead? |
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