Being the story of women who start a phone-sex service, this has cheesy exploitation flick written all over it, but was a nice surprise. Actually, it resembles nothing so much as a romantic comedy about platonic friends. To be sure, there is actual romance in the story, but the main relationship is between the two women, one of whom is played by Lauren Miller, one of the two women who wrote the screenplay. The other one, Katie Anne Naylon, is the one with actual phone-sex experience, which explains both the attention to detail—the need for a second person to handle billing, for example—and the the reason the plot centers around a now-waning business.
Miller is the nice girl, and Ari Graynor the party girl she’s hated since college, but then their gay pal (Justin Long) sets them up…as roommates, and they need money, this being New York, and the apartment being surprisingly large, and so…. You expect sex jokes here, and there are, but the tone is salacious, not smutty. The callers, a couple of whom may be recognizable from other films, are the subjects of humor, as you might expect, but not the objects of ridicule. In fact, the whole thing has a good-natured sex-positive tone that I liked. An encounter with a disapproving religious conservative is one of the funnier parts of the movie. To be sure, there is no deep meaning here, and the climax, if I may use that word, is a strained parody of a real romantic comedy ending. But real comedy is here, too.
IMDb link
viewed 8/29/12 7:30 pm at Rave University 6 and reviewed 9/6/12
The premise may not be anything entirely original, but this cast milks for all that its worth and brings out a whole bunch of laughs because of that. Can’t go wrong with that. Good review Adam.
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