Full Frontal

Distorting the imaginary line between cinema and reality is simple for director Steven Soderbergh, who, with the commitment of stars like Julia Roberts and George Clooney, has his feet deeply soiled in both Hollywood’s garden and in Sundance’s snowy streets. From bizarre avant-garde films like Schizopolis to big-budget studio fares like his remake of Ocean’s 11, Soderbergh’s subjects are as diverse as he is talented. But after a slew of trendily mainstream hits, with no ambiguity whatsoever, the Academy Award winning director decided to get reacquainted with his roots and take small-scale filmmaking to a regulated extreme. The result is Full Frontal; an experimentally-interesting/overtly-pretentious film that flips the switch on life’s relevancy to the arts.

Full Frontal is a film within a film shot on two different cameras. Soderbergh uses a desaturated Digital Video image to depict the “reality” section, while employing traditional 35MM film stock to capture the cinematic portion. What is achieved through these diverse aesthetics is a celluloid-half with a mundane story whilst fueling the murky DV-stuff with an interesting and dramatic plot; thus proposing life to be infinitely more chaotic than any movie ever can be. Here is a filmmaker who successfully infiltrated the studio system, suggesting real drama doesn’t occur onscreen, but in our homes.

The DV story follows a dozen or so interconnected self-absorbed L.A. types for 24-hours as they prepare to attend a 40^th birthday party for their movie producer friend, Gus (David Duchovny). Set in Hollywood, the film is overrun by actors, writers, and directors. There is Carl (David Hyde Pierce), a successful screenwriter/journalist married to depressed VP of Human Resources, Lee (Catherine Keener). Her sister (Mary McCormick) is a masseuse involved in an Internet relationship with stage director Arty (Enrico Colantoni), who is putting on a play about Adolph Hitler (played by Nicky Katt).

While these characters are interesting enough on their own terms, their scenes are intercut with a film titled Rendezvous, written by Carl and Arty who pepper the script with their personal lives; another example of how we perceive ourselves to be as opposed to how we are. And it’s this juxtaposition of movies and reality that give Full Frontal its layers of ambiguity.

Starring in Rendezvous is Francesca (Julia Roberts), an actress playing a journalist interviewing famous TV star Nicholas (Blaire Underwood), who’s making his film debut in a David Fincher movie. While the plot may sound as complex as any James Bond film, paying attention to the on-screen dramas does have its rewards. -Shaun Sages

GRADE: B-

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