Film #46 - For A Good Time, Call

It would be tempting to give Bridesmaids the credit for a film like For A Good Time, Call but it was apparent from the Q&A after this sneak preview in Toronto last night that the script had been kicking around for a lot longer than that.

Instead it’s probably more a case of Bridesmaids’ success finally proving to the marketing geniuses that there really is an audience out there for films about the sexier, sillier side of the female experience and the barriers that stopped films like FAGTC emerging earlier have finally started to emerge.

Sorry, I have a personal cross to bear with the idea that the marketing department should be the final say in whether a film gets green lit or not.

While we’re on personal disclosure, I was at this screening as the guest of one of the stars/co-writer’s relatives. So, if you think that will bias my opinion, you should probably know that in advance.

Ignore the pink phone and the landline, this film is
actually not set in the 90s. I had thought phone sex itself was
set in the 90s but my lady friends tell me I'm wrong

For A Good Time, Call concerns itself with the affairs of Lauren (Lauren Miller) and Katie (Ari Graynor) who, despite hating each other, are forced to live together as a result of socio-economic circumstances. The initially frigid relationship between the two begins to thaw when the uptight Lauren discovers that the free-wheeling Katie is making bank on the side by working for a phone sex line. Applying her business acumen to the idea, Lauren soon figures out how to set Katie up her own sex line and gets drawn into a world of sexual exploration she had never dreamed of entering.

The hook for the story, and most of the best jokes, revolves around the sex, the perverted things men ask of the women and their reactions to them. But, just like Bridesmaids is not about weddings, the phone sex line is not the real subject of the film.

2012 has been a good year for mainstream films giving greater dimension to traditionally clichéd female relationship with Snow White and the Huntsman tackling female rivalry and Brave handling mother-daughter relationship. For A Good Time Call continues the trend with its treatment of arguably one of the most portrayed and most unexplored questions: what makes women friends?  Focusing on the start of the real relationship between these women makes this less of an indie version of Bridesmaids though and more of a female version of I Love You Man.

Lauren is secretly glad her housemate
has never heard of Cam4

Sadly, For A Good Time Call is far from a definitive voice on the subject. Although the pacing of the relationship of the women is well managed there’s a slight sense that we’re on rails here and their friendship blossoms because it is a story requirement rather than because the writers have anything greater to say about the subject. This is particularly noticeable around the second act turning point where all of the story elements we expect to play out did indeed play out in exactly the sequence we expected.

That again I suspect is less of an issue with the writers themselves than with the notes they’ve received as most of the script is very polished and feels as natural as one of this genre probably can. In a year where mainstream scripts have struggled with pacing and pathos, For A Good Time Call is never boring and its never a mystery as to why you might care about what happens to the two leads.

This is of course helped by the sympathetic performances coming out of Miller and Graynor, particularly in the latter’s case as she balances a tough girl exterior reminiscent of Bette Midler’s CC Bloom with a vulnerability reminiscent of Bette Midler’s CC Bloom. Girl reminded me of CC Bloom is what I’m saying here.

Although the men in the film are, without exception, inconsequential there are a number of amusing cameos from good sports like Seth Rogen, Kevin Smith and Ken Marino as some of the callers in.

It's OK, Jesse, you've set Act 1 in motion, you can leave now.

Justin Long also hangs around as Jesse, the mutual gay friend of both women who engineers their living situation in the first place but doesn’t provide much after setting events in motion. And frankly, for an actor who I seen great stuff from before, he does not acquit himself at all well here. I was wondering if Long had ever even met a gay person in his life until the Q&A afterwards revealed he based his character on the gay director, Jamie Travis. Considering we got to meet Travis in the Q&A itself I would now like to formally protest any plans Long had to play me in the biopic of my life. 

I’m sure he’s hurting.

All in all, For A Good Time Call is very sweet, often quite quite funny and an excellent debut for both Jamie Travis and a director and Lauren Miller/Katie Anne Naylon as writers. It’s not going to set the world on fire by any means but is a thoroughly enjoyable 90 minutes.