My First Mister

I think the first hour of this film is the most enjoyable thing I've seen in a long time. Great plot, characters and acting. Sobieski and Brooks make their characters real people, not stereotypes.

The last 45 minutes are a little melodramatic for my tastes, but by that time I was so invested in the characters, I stuck with the film. The ending is a little ambiguous, which seems much more plausible than a typical "Hollywood ending".

A feel good weeper comedy/light-drama, "My First Mister" tells of the coming of age of a teenaged pin cushion goth female (Sobrieski) who's into self mutilation and talking to dead people and her platonic love affair with a middle aged conservative and phobic man (Brooks). In this flick about strange bedfellows and a Spring/Autumn relationship, Lahti turns the lens on the female character illuminating many of the insecurities which beset and befuddle teen females and proves once again on celluloid that love conquers all. As the film wears on it plateaus and becomes somewhat muddled by unnecessary quirky characters and an side plot about Brook's past in an apparent attempt to jerk the last tear and keep feel good moments coming. Nonetheless, rising star Sobrieski proves to be a capable and durable centerpiece for a film worth watching front to back.

Jennifer Benson (Leelee Sobieski) is a seventeen years old misfit punk teenager that uses piercing, tattoos, wears only black clothes and dyed hair, self-inflicts injures and has fixation for death. She misses a father and a normal mother, since Mrs. Benson (Carol Kane) has trouble in the communication with her, and feels absolutely rejected. While looking for a job, she meets the forty-nine years old Randall Harris (Albert Brooks), a lonely man who owns a shopping store, and he hires her. They are opposites but with loneliness and lack of friends in common. They become close friends, and their interaction changes their behavior for good while secrets and feelings are disclosed.

This is the second work of the excellent underrated actress Christine Lahti as director that I see (the other one is the short "Lieberman in Love"), and also a surprisingly great movie. The original and the Brazilian titles are simply awful and vulgar, and do not mirror this sensitive story of loneliness and friendship. Leelee Sobieski has another great performance in the role of a disturbed and rebellious teenager, needy of love and care, who changes her behavior when she meets her soul-mate friend in a middle-age man. I am not fan of Albert Brooks, but he is great performing Randall Harris, the man who touches Jennifer in the heart. In the end, a toast to all special "F" words: to friends, family, fate, forgiveness and forever. Wonderful and touching! My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Meu Primeiro Homem" ("My First Man")

My First Mister is about a gothic and angry teenage girl named "J"(Leelee Sobieski). She doesn't have any friends, hates her family, you might as well put it that she hates her life. One day while she is looking for a job, she stumbles upon "R"(Albert Brooks) a 49 year old man with a beer belly. "R" turns out to give "J" a job at his store and the two of them turn out to be friends and what is next is a wonderful friendship that could last a lifetime and change both "R" and "J" and the way they feel about life. I really enjoyed My First Mister, it was clever, funny and very interesting. It kind of reminded me of Ghost World. I would give My First Mister 9/10

May to December can be the cruelest months if they're about a relationship between a young woman and an older man. `American Beauty' and more recently `Ghost World' carried the usual criticism of this socially questionable alliance, from downright damage in the former to uncertainty about how it could ever work in the latter.

In `My First Mister,' starring Albert Brooks and Leelee Sobieski, the union works so beautifully in the first half of the film I thought even I could try it. Director Christine Lahti, who won an Oscar for best short film, "Lieberman in Love," concentrates on the flowering friendship between a Goth girl who needs a friend and a job and a 49 year-old haberdasher who has jettisoned everyone in order to live out his life painlessly for everyone.

Jill Franklyn, who wrote the "Yada Yada" episode of "Seinfeld," pens perfect lines for the understated Brooks, such as when he first sees Sobieski: "Scram. Shoo. Why don't you go get your eyeballs pierced?" and another time when he says, "I want the smallest tattoo you have. Can you give me a dot, or a period?"

Director Lahti shows her originality by letting us painfully and slowly watch a purple-haired Sobieski pull out her nose and face rings. This film is the best I have ever seen to give respect to a much-maligned paring in movies. The 17-year-old punker helps him awaken to life's interesting couplings like cavorting mannequins, and he shows her love unalloyed. When the time comes for sex, as it always does in Hollywood, no one cares, even the audience, because the point is the friendship.

In the second half of the film Lahti lets go of her originality to indulge the genre with the usual fatal twist, easy reconciliation of family, and renewal for Sobieski found in a most unbelievable coincidence. Yet I can't forget that first half, where 2 human beings, unencumbered by any expectation other than their own need for connection, follow none of the formulas but love on its own terms.