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.
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