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Review by Harvey Karten
3 stars out of 4
Dylan Kidd may be a first-time director but while direction is not
a particularly strong point in "Roger Dodger," the script is a first-
rate, cynical dissertation on the sexual wars. The opening
conversation around a table at a bar holding the boss and
employees of a crackerjack New York ad agency, is so sharp that
a typical arthouse patron might even think back to David Hare's
"The Designated Mourner," except that this time the topic is not
so trivial as the Death of Culture but the far more important one:
Sex. To Roger Swanson (Campbell Scott), the pursuit of sex is
as exciting as the hunt is to the deer slayer: we get the
impression by the final scene of this 105-minute theatrical
piece in which Mr. Kidd attempts throughout to one-up Neil La
Bute for nastiness that the chase is more important than the
reward. Consider how unsuccessful Roger is in gaining his
alleged objective and how competent he is as a silver-tongued
orator who could out-debate Johnny Cochran and who seems to
expand his social vocabulary with every puff of his omnipresent
cigarette.
With a theme redolent of the musical "Auntie Mame," Roger
Dodger introduces a 16-year-old Ohio resident, Nick (Jesse
Eisenberg), who makes a surprise visit on his uncle Roger just
after the former's interview for a place at Columbia University. The
difference is that Roger does not treat his nephew as an underage
kid who must be protected from four-letter words and the sex act
itself but as a student of physical love to whom he condescends
only occasionally, at other times treating him almost like an
equal. When Roger is not making the scene with his boss at the
ad agency, Joyce (Isabella Rossellini) who despite her extra
years feels free to collect younger men at her ad agency like
trophies only to dispense with them when she's bored he's doing
the bars, trying to prove to the teen that he scores "every night."
Roger, though, gets his nickname because apparently he'd rather
dodge the women he meets after hitting on them, presumably
because he has the same contempt for women that a pimp has
for his stable.
"Roger Dodger" is a nasty movie, which is all to its credit,
though one which does not really gather steam as it progresses.
Nothing in the story quite matches the opening gambit with his
boss and colleagues as he entertains them with a vision of the
near future in which not only will men become obsolete except for
lifting couches, but sperm itself will no longer be necessary for
procreation. Campbell Scott is vastly entertaining in a story that
you'd most likely find on the off-Broadway stage but which works
fine on the screen despite Kidd use of natural light which keeps
most of the scenes pretty dark as though to match the
protagonist's own in-the-dark mentality about the opposite sex.
With the exception of Isabella Rossellini who cannot match
Scott Campbell's dialogue for wit and cynicism but can only
respond with some cleverness to his repartee Dylan Kidd's
women are strictly supporting players some barflies like Andrea
(Elizabeth Berkley) and Sophie (Jennifer Beals), others there
simply to allow Roger to insult them for their advancing age. In
one of Roger Dodger's most prescient adages, that the purpose of
advertising is "thinking up ways to make people feel bad? (and
promising that its products would fulfill the gaps), just think of how
many movies with sexy stars make us feel inadequate. We don't
look like them, we cannot attract others the way they can, we
don't have the incredible orgasms that they appear to enjoy.
What should we do to fulfill ourselves? Ask Roger. He'll give you
the answer, but I'd guess he goes back to an empty apartment
more nights than he'd like to admit.
Copyright © 2002 Harvey Karten
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