Film Review: Full Frontal (2002)

When a film maker has a career as prolific and diverse as Steven Soderbergh, it is not likely that some of his films will be significantly better, but also that some will be significantly worse than others. Soderbergh’s 2002 drama Full Frontal represents belongs to the latter category.

The plot takes place in a day and follows eight people loosely connected around Hollywood film production. Catherine (played by Julia Roberts) and Nicholas (played by Blair Underwood) are two actors playing lovers in the film, which is produced by Gus (played by David Duchovny). Lee (played by Catherine Keener) is corporate executive who is having extramarital affair with Nicholas, while contemplating leaving her husband Carl (played by David Hyde Pierce), writer who has just been fired from his job. Lee’s sister Linda (played by Mary MacCormack) works as part-time masseuse and contemplates giving extra services to some client in order to finance her trip to Tucson, where he is to meet Arty (played by Enrico Colantoni), charming artist whom she met online. Arty is actually theatre director who is just staging ambitious production of “edgy” stage play about Hitler, who is being played by eccentric actor (played by Nicky Katt).

Script by Coleman Hough appears to be an attempt to paint Robert Altman-like drama with ensemble cast, very much like The Player who had similar subject. Plenty of self-references and “film within a film” motive added another “meta” dimension, which was becoming popular within the ranks of American and world’s art cinema. But, whatever intention Hough and Soderbergh had, it was compromised by the series of Soderbergh’s less than fortunate creative decision. The most important was making Full Frontal in two techniques – on traditional film tape and on digital video, each covering “fiction” and “reality” sections of the film. Despite Soderbergh’s reputation as top cinematographer, the result of this experiment is less than impressive, and poor dialogue makes the plot looking incredibly confusing. Film was deliberately made “rough around the edges”, which can be explained with Soderbergh apparently experimenting with his own brand of Dogme 95 rules, and insisting on cast, including some top Hollywood names like Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt (who plays himself in cameo) to wear their own clothes or arrive on set by themselves. The result is unpleasant and confusing film that only at times looks sensible due to energetic performances and couple of lucid jokes. Full Frontal will probably be the most entertaining to the fans of The X-Files, because “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Reposes”, one of the best episodes of that show, contained prophetic words that would, in a macabre way, come true in one of the final scenes of the film. The rest of the audience, on the other hand, would probably be wise not to be impressed by Soderbergh’s previous box office and critical successes and simply skip this failed experiment.

RATING: 3/10 (+)

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