Review: Good Dick

When in a state of terror, the brain begins to develop a series of processes to cope with the brutality. Watching a film as bad as Good Dick, I find myself first desperately clinging to hope, trying to find potential in any nook or cranny. Then the monotonous boredom reaches a near Zen-like state as my spirit begins to let go of any concept of there being a beginning or an end, a passive acceptance that what is happening merely is. Eventually, what breaks down the inner Bodhisattva is a profound sense of sorrow that there was a person whose mind generated not only these ideas, but wrote them down, and communicated them to the outside world.

Good Dick is the story of the unlikely romance between two people simply credited as "Man" (Jason Ritter) and "Woman" (Marianna Palka). He is homeless and she is borderline agoraphobic. Once a week, they meet at the video store where he works and she occasionally rents pornography. They have awkward exchanges about her film choices and through the power of terrible movie magic and even worse screenwriting, this all somehow leads to a profound emotional connection that baffles both his friends and any viewer. Man and Woman move in together and proceed to do and say horrible things to each other. Their cruelty is punctuated by long, boring scenes that could possibly be interpreted as happiness, but feel, to the audience, about as pleasurable as having a car door slammed repeatedly on your hand.

Read the rest of this review at Greencine.

Comments

[Gabe]

This 'gem' ended up in my Netflix queue some time ago. How it got there, I don't remember. Do I want to take it out after reading your review? Absolutely! Can I in good conscience knowing what's really in store for me? Hell no!

Maybe I should throw The Spirit into my queue for good measure and finish off the evening's double-feature by pounding my forehead with a ball-peen hammer. Sounds like cinematic bliss to me.