# Two Girls and a Guy (1997)

### reviewed by
Nathaniel R. Atcheson

    Two Girls and a Guy (1998)

Director: James Toback Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Heather Graham, Natasha Gregson Wagner Screenplay: James Toback Producers: Chris Hanley, Edward R. Pressman Runtime: 84 min. US Distribution: 20th Century Fox/Fox Searchlight Rated R: strong sex scene, strong language and sexual dialogue, violence

By Nathaniel R. Atcheson (nate@pyramid.net)

Two Girls and a Guy is most easily summed up with the five words of its title. It's about two girls, Carla (Heather Graham) and Lou (Natasha Gregson Wagner), and a guy, Blake (Robert Downey Jr.). The two girls meet outside of Blake's apartment building, at which point they realize that they're waiting for the same guy. It turns out that they're both his girlfriends, and that he's been lying to them for the past ten months. They break into Blake's apartment, and have a lively conversation about their mutual boyfriend.

Through about fifteen minutes of constant dialogue, they learn that he's said the same things to both of them, word for word. (My favorite line is, "You own my [penis]. It's attached to me, but you own it."). Soon, Blake returns home, and his girlfriends hide out for several minutes as he calls his mother, and then goes to the mirror and sings a few tunes for himself. At this point, Carla makes herself seen, and they have a long conversation in which she toys with him and tries to get him to admit his guilt. Finally, Lou emerges from the closet, and they engage in a big, hostile argument.

Written and directed by James Toback, Two Girls and a Guy is a static picture that takes place almost entirely inside Blake's apartment, with almost no lapses in time or jumps in action. There are a lot of very funny scenes, but there are also a lot of strange moments that feature inconsistent tones and weird story developments (there isn't much of a story, but it does develop a little bit). Too much of the film feels staged (the picture probably would have worked better as a play) and doesn't quite strike me as realistic. It's never a boring picture, but there are almost as many flaws as there are laughs.

Take, for instance, Toback's direction. Since there isn't a lot of movement (although the apartment is enormous and very interesting to look at), there isn't much room for cinematography or intricate camerawork. And there really shouldn't be a lot of camerawork, but Toback tries to do the pretentious artistic thing, which results in really strange camera angles, random zoom-ins and zoom-outs, lots of focus shifts (the person speaking is out of focus), and other such pointless tricks. It certainly doesn't help the film, and really just calls attention away from the dialogue.

A lot of the dialogue is funny, and a lot of the segments work well as stand-alone pieces (the film is episodic and can be watched in portions without seeing the entire thing). My favorite scene has Blake cornered in his bathroom as Carla explains that she's been with four other men, and Lou tells him that she's been with three women. It's funny, and works on the right kind of humor. Most of the scenes that work don't feel forced, and they are funny because of their realism.

But there are a lot of things here that simply feel strange. The entire subplot with Blake's mother is very odd, and never feels quite right (even the end is completely ambiguous, and neither of the two possibilities for what actually happened seem very plausible). Halfway through the film, Carla and Blake engage in a gratuitous marathon of mutual masturbation and oral sex, and the reasons for this are not apparent. Blake also fakes a suicide at one point just to "prove a point" as he says; but, the scene is strange and just wouldn't be feasible in real life.

All of the acting is entertaining. Downey is, of course, funny, and seems allowed to roam free and do whatever he wants here (and he does one hell of a Hamlet, I might add). Graham is wonderful and beautiful, and she just makes me want to look at her forever. Wagner, an actress I've not seen before, is also adequately spunky and is right for the role. It seems that a lot of the film is improvisation, and I think the three performers have done a good job of staying with their characters and making the film fun to watch.

Two Girls and a Guy is a reasonably interesting picture, but it has the feel of a film that was thrown together on a whim, one that needed more input from other sources. I'm not sure if this kind of material is right for film on its own, mostly because Toback doesn't utilize the advantages that film has over other mediums. And he's a talented writer, but someone else should have been involved to mediate the scenes that are peripheral and just plain strange. I'm not sure if I liked Two Girls and a Guy, but at least it kept me interested.

    ** out of ****
    (5/10, C)

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               Nathaniel R. Atcheson

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