Pumpkin

Surprisingly sweet dark comedy is really too sentimental at heart to be the edgy piece it was promoted as, and the curious final results show definite signs of indecisive filmmakers (two directors!) at the helm. A sorority princess living in a privileged bubble has her existence turned upside-down after forging a loving relationship with a mentally challenged young man, losing her friends in the process. The direction is erratic, and the tone of the film changes from scene to scene, yet it is certainly unpredictable and the cast is game. I don't know if the focus of the movie was changed midway, but the later sequences have a sweet nuance to them, as if a big softie suddenly took over to see this thing through to a happy ending. And then there's that final shot which, in keeping with the rest of the picture, is amusingly bizarre. **1/2 from ****

"Your relationship is...inappropriate," one of Carolyn's sadly superficial sorority sisters says to her in the course of "Pumpkin", and that statement sums up this superbly uncategorizable exercise to perfection. Nothing about "Pumpkin" is appropriate, from the soundtrack choices (the music in the fight scene between Pumpkin and Kent in particular), the casting (it was a near-shock to see Dominique Swain with her clothes on through the ENTIRE FILM for openers), the story itself and the shamelessly ambiguous manner in which it's presented. It works, though, thanks to a supremely conflicted and tender performance from Christina Ricci and the simplicity, sensitivity and sincerity of Hank Harris' interpretation of the title character. Life isn't just one thing, it's all things all at one time sometimes. Just like this movie.

This is what happens when you make a movie without deciding what sort of movie you're making. Half of Pumpkin wants to be a an over-the-top, artificial satire like Heathers or But I'm a Cheerleader, and the other half wants to be a sweet movie of a shallow girl who grows from her experience with a mentally challenged boy. While it might be possible to make the film's premise work with either of these approaches, you can't use both of them. Scenes that are comedically exaggerated are followed by scenes of painful sincerity. Some actors appear to think they're in a satire while others think they're in a drama, so even individual scenes seem askew. The film probably would have worked best as pure satire, but one suspects the director thought the underlying issues were important and wanted to hammer them home dramatically. As a drama it fails because it makes no sense, Ricci's character isn't given anything convincing to react to; the situation is simply absurd. This is a classic example of failed direction.

Oddly enough, my girlfriend loved this.

Satires are not always comedies, just like comedies are not always satires. Examples: "Robocop", "District 9", "Starship Troopers", "Stepford Wives" ...these are all brilliant satires; yet they are not comedies.

I think it's misleading for Pumpkin to be advertised as a comedy. Sure, it's packed full of subtle humour, but like the films I mentioned above, its intent is probably not to make us laugh out loud. Its intent is to give us an offbeat look at society without taking itself too seriously. So if you go into this film expecting something "HYSTERICALLY FUNNY" (says the Washington Post), you might be disappointed.

Another caveat: this film is not about disabled people--not like, say, "Shine" or "My Left Foot". True, the plot is about a sorority girl who gets into an "inappropriate" relationship with a mentally challenged boy, but that's just a metaphor for what the film is really hitting us with. The film simply uses this metaphor to illustrate the screwed-up norms of human society. Pay attention early on to the speech Christina Ricci gives about how sororities & fraternities end up dividing us, labeling us and creating differences where none really exist. I believe that encapsulates what this film is trying to tell us about our world, and you'll realize it's a lot more than just a romantic comedy.

In order to fully appreciate this film, you CANNOT take anything at face value. Everything ...even the wooden acting or the melodramatic pill scene or the exploding car (lol)... is designed to be over-the-top, showing us a bizarre world and giving a little wink to the audience. Almost every scene will have you wondering if the filmmakers were being ironic, and that's the beauty of unravelling a film such as this. It's very subtle but well executed, almost like Hitchcock's brand of humour in Strangers on a Train which, similarly, pokes fun at the veneer of polite society hiding the screwed-uppedness beneath (in fact, "Pumpkin" has a tennis scene that's reminiscent of the tennis scene in the "Strangers").

I'm not sure if everyone will like Pumpkin but I sure did. If you're a fan of the 4 satires I mentioned in my 1st paragraph, I think you'll like it. If so, I highly recommend the Mexican film "Casi Divas" (2008) about a cut-throat talent competition, and the Spanish movie "El Crimen Ferpecto" (2004) about a man trapped in a department store overnight. Along with "Pumpkin", these are light-hearted gems that make us think hard about the human condition. Oh don't forget "Heathers" (1988) which fits right in with the bunch, though a bit on the darker side.

I'm not sure if this movie goes way too far, or not far enough. A dark teenage comedy, Pumpkin tells of the story of the perfection obsessed sorority girl Carolyn McDuffy who falls for Pumpkin, a mentally challenged boy she meets when her sorority house agrees to coach some `special people.' The film forces the viewer to look inward and confront their own prejudices, but it does so in such a strange and weirdly paced way that it is hard to recommend Pumpkin, although I think it is an interesting movie. I wish someone like Lloyd Kaufman would have directed it, someone who would take the gloves off and go for the jugular in every scene and really give this material some bite. A movie like this will only work if the filmmaker goes in completely committed to the idea. As it is Pumpkin seems to teeter on the brink of outrageousness, but pulling back every time to stay on the PC side of the fence. It's a shame because this could have been a truly wonderful and subversive movie.