My Better Half Has Bitten Me

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Hopefully you'll forgive me if I'm feeling a little defensive over this movie this morning. It got pretty solidly trounced at the box office and the reviews weren't too kind for the most part (although Ebert and the NYT both liked it). And I'm not gonna argue that it's a perfect, or even a great, film.

But it is a good film, a deceptively smart film, and a very funny and occasionally touching film, and the vitriol being aimed at it just strikes me as lazy, frankly. It's not worthy of such malice, and such a fevered response - so many people clamoring for the movie to fail - does make me wonder what the real, perhaps buried, reasons for such emotions might be. There's a good if brief piece over at Cinematical discussing all this though so go check that out.

As for the movie proper! Like I said, good, not great. It has some pacing issues and it's never what you might call, "scary." But I don't necessarily think that "scary" was entirely the film's intent, so that's not as big a flaw as it might've been with a straighter horror flick. What it is, which you'll get from the reviews that have bothered to give the film some thought, is a dissection of toxic female friendships, and as such it's terrific. It's more in line with something like Heathers or Mean Girls or especially Ginger Snaps.

And believe me or not (and most of you will probably choose "not") but Megan Fox gives a terrific performance. I knew going in that I'd adore Amanda Seyfried, I'm in capable of anything but, and for sure she was her always-winning self (her facial expression during her sex scene is joy itself). But Fox... well I've been clamoring to like Fox for months now. I don't get why, it seems like she'd be someone pushing all my hate buttons (biggest of them all being a Michael Bay discovery), but no. Her interviews, the ones with the blurbs heard round the world that make everyone bang their head on the wall, make me laugh. She doesn't skimp on rattling off her own shortcomings, but she's also honest about the things that aren't her shortcomings and that's the stuff that seems to really piss people off. Well I say thank Christ I don't have to hear another story about how ugly and awkward some supermodel was in high school to make her seem "more relatable" or human." Fuck that noise.

See, it's hard to talk about this film by itself; it's so easy to get distracted by the outside stuff. Obviously even I can't do it. But Fox is good in the film. She's funny and creepy and sexy and there's a scene where she's called upon to do even more than that, to drop all the pretense that is Jennifer (the character's a whole lot of pretense, of "acting" for whoever is in front of her at any given moment, for most of the film) and suddenly be a scared young girl and I was taken aback by it. By how strong and real and horrible Fox made that moment. So I no longer feel the need to justify my liking of Fox. She deserves it.
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