A Woman, Her Men, and Her Futon

Reviewer: Heather Lund (U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

"A WOMAN, HER MEN, AND HER FUTON" is one of the most accomplished films one can find about sexual politics. Although it suffers occasionally from actress Jennifer Rubin's comatose performance, the film honestly and intelligently depicts characters we know. Its style and content are reminiscent of the French film maker Eric Rohmer's, with the same kind of deceptive simplicity and a similar emphasis on the ambiguity of psycho-sexual interaction. Director Sibay is highly skilled when it comes to actors and as a writer his dialogue is often compelling. If the subject matter is your cup of tea I highly recommend it.

The title of this film caught my attention one night when I was browsing Netflix. I thought it was a provocative enough title to add to my queue, expecting a cheap exploitative sex movie. Boy, was I surprised! It turned out to be quite a serious film, where the sex is never exploitative but an organic part of the story. The whole narrative is about sexual manipulation and anyone who has ever been in a heterosexual relationship would relate to the characters. And it's all done with elegance and simplicity that is almost European. And most charming of all, there's a story within a story, so while the two main characters who are screenwriters talk about the story they are writing, what they are really talking about is their own relationship. My only comment is that Jennifer Rubin's performance was uneven. At times she played the character like a teenager and it was hard to believe that she was a writer, and at other times she played it like an adult who was experienced enough to be a writer. But that's minor when I think of the overall impact the movie left on me. I guess it affected me because I once knew a girl like that...

I thought this movie had an interesting title, but that was about it. I found it excruciatingly boring and incredibly pretentious. This movie reflects, I think, Hollywood's disdain for the average moviegoer and shows just how out of touch Hollywood's writers and directors are. I lived in LA for many years, and I can truthfully say that I never met characters like those displayed in this movie.

On the positive side, I thought Jennifer Rubin was beautiful, although she played a total jerk and that Grant Show was good.

Unhappy with her current marriage "Helen" (Jennifer Rubin) has left her husband and has since moved in with her boyfriend "Paul" (Michael Cerveris). However, after a while she discovers that he has become too possessive and decides that she wants to leave him as well. Unfortunately, she doesn't quite know how to break it off with him and as a result she soon finds herself trying to cope with an ex-husband who wants her back and a boyfriend who can't seem to let her go. So, in an effort to gain some space she moves in with another man named "Donald" (Lance Edwards) who offers her a spare room in exchange for her help in writing a movie script. What Helen soon realizes, however, is that Donald wants more than just a platonic friendship and he doesn't give up easily. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that, despite the solid performances of both Jennifer Rubin and Lance Edwards, the plot was rather slow and unremarkable. That's not to say that this was a bad film by any means, but it could have used a bit more intensity in some places. And it's for that reason that I have rated it accordingly. Average.

You gotta take this movie for what it is. I mean, this is the kind of film where two of the main characters engage in a casual conversation about their concurrent lives while the guy gently caresses the naked breasts of the girl "as a friend". Yes, when she tries to resist his cuddles with admonitions, the guy retorts by saying, "But... I just wanna hold you naked."

But the movie does have some neat ideas. It's just that the writer didn't have enough chops to make it a competent one. There's no sense of direction, neither from the director nor within the characters. The role Jennifer Rubin plays is supposed to be the epitome of the independent American woman. She has recently divorced her husband, got out of a relationship where the partner wanted way too much commitment than she was willing to make; and after all that mostly off-screen hoopla, she engages in an exclusively physical relationship with one of her colleagues while trying to work out the friendship with a screenwriter who tries to go over the thresholds of physical intimacy every now and then.

An aspiring screenwriter herself, she has agreed to act in her friend's movie as he tries to corral all the funding he can get from his fellow businessman friend. But he's still struggling with the characters he's writing. So he seeks Rubin's help to write a coherent screenplay by offering her to move in with him.

I think Sibay (the writer-director of this movie) wanted to mirror the volatility of the characters of the story within the story through his own characters too, but his approach was too lax to bridle the narrative as it goes. The movie seems undeniably amateurish with something short of a first draft for a screenplay. The last line uttered by the Rubin character in voice-over was probably the departure point of the whole theme underlying the film, which makes it all the more lugubrious of an experience to know that such an exciting interplay couldn't make it through the creative suffocation of the production team.

Then again, Jennifer Rubin has a wonderful body. Her occasionally bulbous breasts have graced the screen quite a few times-- which is enough in itself, but not enough to hold a viewer for 90 minutes in front of the screen. But I achieved the feat, and so can you.