Coming Soon

My fiance and I watched the little trailer for this despicable movie the other night on some movie channel. We figured we'd watch it since nothing else was on and I'm glad I did.

"Coming Soon" is possibly one of the worst movies ever made. I usually save words like those for movies like, "Fear Dot Com," but I was truly sickened by what was written and portrayed in this movie. Because I couldn't find the writer/director's home address, I figured this is the next best forum to voice my disgust with this movie.

"Coming Soon" stars a cast of whining 20-somethings as high school seniors. They all come from rich families, they go to private schools, they have drivers, they're models and get into Harvard... so from the beginning we know this is a fantasy movie, right? The subject of the movie tries to focus on how teenage girls learn to orgasm. It sounds more like an episode of "Sex and the City" to me. So we're basically dealing with a topic that pertains more so to older women.

But what happens when these younger girls, who the movie is aimed towards, watch this movie? The writer idolizes the main character (somehow she's smart but never studies, has a "cool" name, Stream, and has similar problems of boyfriends being jerks in high school) so girls around that age will sympathise with Stream. What happens, though, is they are introduced by other things, such as smoking all the time, drinking all the time, going to clubs while still underage, and having pre-marital sex with someone she really doesn't like. She develops a thing for the quirky (not actually quirky but the movie portrays it that way since everyone else's norm is stuck-up rich kid) MTV video star Ryan Reynolds... a favorite of mine from Nickelodeon's Canadian Drama "Fifteen." Don't we all remember those guys we knew in high school who had a crappy band that made it to MTV while still in high school?

The movie goes between this fantasy world and real world too much, and seems like it was made to encourage underage everything. I'm ashamed that this movie was ever made, not because of its topic of female orgasm, but because of its morally degenerative story.

"Coming Soon" is a film about a clique of girls who essentially have been sold a lie. That is, the only way to be happy is to get into an Ivy League school, get your wealthy parents to give you anything you want, and be a sexual beast with your trophy boyfriend. What the girls eventually realize is that these goals are completely hollow. The Ivy League does not guarantee your a golden future, money doesn't buy you happiness, and sex without pleasure is cheap and meaningless. Therefore the girls go on a quest to discover the pleasure of life, and learn that breaking the mold is the only way to find fulfillment.

In its execution, the movie relies on "clever" but stilted dialogue, over-simplified world views, giant leaps of imagination, and a very childish way of getting a point across, i.e. ignoring logic.

I am quick to applaud the goals of this film. Women deserve to be just as satisfied as men, sexually and every other way. But the way the movie gets to this goal misses the mark by a long mile. For any serious movie connoisseur who likes movies like Shortbus, Fat Girl, well basically anything covered in IFC's "Indie Sex" documentary, it's worth a viewing. But I, like the main character after her first sexual encounter, was left unsatisfied.

Coming Soon went a long way in illustrating how weird and awkward sex can be for budding women. Stopped significantly short of encouraging or even addressing masturbation as a way to explore sexuality, however, which is too bad. Also too bad is that it played in debutante elite circles in Manhattan - seems like movies with honest or controversial subjects have to play against perfect backgrounds to be seen.

Altogether a cute movie but not quite the revolutionary breakthrough in propelling female sexuality into the mainstream eye that I had hoped to see.

This film is really funny, a great gender twist on a old story cliche, and to top it all off, Bonnie Root is certainly a talent to keep an eye out for! She alone makes the film worth watching IMHO!!!! Her scenes are funny and great!

Coming Soon is a sweet, though not perfect, coming of age story about teenage girls. Despite the difficulties that the director has had getting distribution, there isn't much shocking about the content of the film - only about the concept of young women who actually care about sexual satisfaction. And the ultimate message - that having sex in the context of a loving relationship is key to satisfaction - is even less of a surprise.

The original VHS version of Coming Soon - the one you're likely to find for rent in video stores - is the R-rated cut of the film. The DVD is the unrated version - the version that was shown at film festivals, and which the MPAA gave an NC-17 rating - and also includes director's commentary that reveals where the cuts were made.

I think that young women, and men, will enjoy this film, and get useful messages from it as well.