Women in Trouble – 1 Bucket

It’s around 9:30 p.m. on a chilly Sunday night outside Downtown Austin’s Paramount Theatre, the premiere venue at the South by Southwest Film Festival. I’m beat after a day of watching movies, but the all-star cast of Sebastian Gutierrez’ Women in Trouble beckons. I walk inside the venue, hoping the film will at least be tolerable enough to keep me awake. Not an hour later, I’m contemplating how I might use my hotel keycard as a suicide weapon, as what I’m watching is so inept it makes the mind wander in such a morose direction.

The dialogue in Gutierrez’ farce is so obnoxious and attention-begging, it makes Tarantino seem as understated as Jim Jarmusch by comparison. An interlocking stories formatted commentary on sex per the basic premise of its title, the movie is broad and not funny at all. Gutierrez shot it over about 10 days and, because he didn’t need much time with them, was able to cast big stars who probably wouldn’t have otherwise even considered the dead-on-arrival script. Then again, perhaps the inclusion of well-known names like Josh Brolin, Carla Gugino, and Marley Shelton is fitting because Women in Trouble mostly attempts graphic body-part jokes that would be right at home in the average hard-R-rated Hollywood sex comedy. (Like, oh my God, isn’t making obvious anatomical references so funny?) Unfortunately for the viewer, this type of gag proves even more insufferable than the failed attempts at indie-edginess you might expect from such a low-budget production. Because there is no reason to care about the caricatures, the goofy and humiliating plots they partake in don’t warrant so much as a chuckle. The only saving grace is that a few of the actresses make for nice eye-candy: when Emmanuelle Chriqui was onscreen, I perked up enough to confine my thoughts to how boring the movie was, as opposed to that potentially-lethal keycard in my wallet.

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Women in Trouble (2009, USA). Originally reviewed at the 2009 SXSW Film Festival (3.21.2009). Produced by Sebastian Gutierrez and Oren Senderman. Directed and written for the screen by Sebastian Gutierrez. Starring Carla Gugino, Adrianne Palicki, Connie Britton, Caitlin Keats, Isabella Gutierrez, Simon Baker, Sarah Clarke, Emmanuelle Chiriqui, Marley Shelton, and Josh Brolin. Distributed by Screen Media Films. Rated R, with a running time of 92 minutes.