Often when something is called a "chick flick," the label is little more
than a euphemism for a mediocre movie starring a group of women. So it is
with CRUSH, written and directed by John McKay, a movie that could have been
given a title like FOUR FUNERALS AND A WEDDING.
You've seen this story a hundred times before. A group of one sex, women in
this case, argue that there aren't enough good people of the opposite sex
over the age of fill-in-the-blank. The age in question this time is forty.
Andie MacDowell (FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL), as a school headmistress
named Kate, spends much of her life swapping "man stories" with her
girlfriends, Janine (Imelda Staunton) and Molly (Anna Chancellor).
Janine tells of the time that she got into a cab at a party, not realizing
that it wasn't actually a cab but a stranger's car. Frightened, she
demanded that the driver stop the car. Afterwards, she jumped out and ran
off into the woods, screaming in the dead of night. Since she is a police
chief, you'd think that she wouldn't scare so easily.
Molly, a doctor, relates the incident of a first date who embarrassed her by
having a heart attack in a restaurant. She gave him CPR on a table right in
the middle of the dinning room floor, causing quite a commotion. Molly
thinks that one of her problems is her attitude toward men. "When I get a
whiff of a man, I go all Stravinsky, when I should go classic FM," she tells
Kate and Janine. The script not only never creates plausible characters, it
has trouble even devising believable dialog.
It falls to Kate to come up with the most shocking story. "I had sex with a
25-year-old yesterday on a tombstone," she tells her girlfriends of her love
affair with Jed (Kenny Doughty), an ex-student of hers who currently works
at a crematorium and as a funeral organist. The chemistry between Kate and
Jed is non-existent, even if the music constantly suggests otherwise. And
no matter how many times they just barely escape being discovered by
passers-by while having intercourse, they never have a genuinely erotic
moment.
How fake is this story? At one point, Molly looks over at Kate and says, "I
can smell man on you." Tell me, women. Would you ever say that to another
woman? I didn't think so. Well, the male writer of this film thinks that
you would. Why don't you drop him a line and straighten him out.
CRUSH runs too long at 1:52. It is rated R for "sexuality and language" and
would be acceptable for most teenagers.
Copyright © 2002 Steve Rhodes
