Loser
USA 2000
Reviewed by Mark Olsen
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Paul Tannek's acceptance by New York University makes him the first member of his Midwestern farming family to attend college. Once in the city he has a hard time fitting in. Even his own room-mates, a group of spoiled, rich party boys, shun him. After a mishap in the classroom of Professor Alcott, Paul meets and falls for fellow student Dora Diamond. Unbeknown to him, Dora is having an affair with Alcott.
After his room-mates conspire to have him kicked out, Paul is forced to live in the animal shelter where he works. Dora tries to meet her tuition fees by working nights as a cocktail waitress in a seedy club. Despite professing his love for her, Alcott is insensitive to Dora's predicament. Paul buys tickets for himself and Dora for a rock concert on the same night that his former room-mates plan to stage a party in his animal shelter. When Dora stops by at the party before the concert, one of the room-mates secretly slips her a pill in hopes of taking advantage of her. She misses the concert; later, a dejected Paul returns home to find Dora passed out in his shelter, which is wrecked from the party. Not wanting to upset Dora while she convalesces, Paul - who now knows about her affair with his professor - lies that Alcott is concerned about her recovery. When she learns the truth about Alcott, Dora realises her true feelings for Paul.
Review
On paper Loser seems like a sure-fire winner. Some of the brightest young acting talent in contemporary Hollywood (Jason Biggs from the smartly risqué American Pie; Mena Suvari from the arthouse crossover American Beauty; Greg Kinnear from the mainstream pleaser As Good As It Gets) join writer-director Amy Heckerling, here making her first film since the surprise success of Clueless. But despite this promising line-up, Loser loses something along the way; what aspires to be a fresh and lively take on collegiate life and the pressures of the early adult years comes out as a tiresome mush filled with cut-outs for characters. For Heckerling, whose reputation is built largely on Clueless and her 1982 high-school comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High, it seems she has become the one thing a purveyor of youth culture can never be: out of touch.
The film's premise is promising enough, as Biggs' young Paul ventures from rural Midwest to New York City, the first member of his family to attend college. Once there, he encounters Suvari's Dora, a worldly, troubled young woman whose exotic mystique attracts the naive farm boy. Complications arise in the form of Paul's uncaring dorm-mates and Dora's illicit affair with one of their professors (the blatantly uninterested Kinnear).
Loser switches between outdoor scenes shot in well-known New York locations and indoor scenes filmed largely on sound stages in Toronto. The difference in look and feel between the two is palpable and a constant distraction. During a number of scenes - apparently inspired by Billy Wilder's sparkling 1960 comedy The Apartment - where Paul and Dora sit in his shabby room and talk, straining to connect, one can see the film Loser wants to be poke out from behind the glossy veneer. But for Biggs and Suvari, such genuinely lively moments are few and far between. The film's final scene, presumably the product of last-minute reshoots, finds Biggs with a different haircut and visibly many pounds lighter. Though the actors awkwardly exchange lines explaining his appearance, it's hard not to find such obvious patchwork jarring. It would probably be beyond the means of any film-maker to bring such a messy movie to a graceful conclusion, but the forced romantic coupling and outlandishly unfunny end-title cards explaining the characters' futures (a popular patch-and-fix solution) are particularly off-putting.
The numerous shortcomings of Heckerling's film are a real disappointment considering her place in the development of the teen movie. At a time when Fast Times and Clueless are considered high-water marks as honest representations of teen mores, Loser seems to fancy itself as an antidote to such blandly generic teen films as Boys and Girls. But the project repeatedly strains for laughs by pushing itself to cartoonish extremism, notably through the trite villainy of Paul's room-mates and Dora's sleazy professor, so any honestly earned sympathies are lost. Failing even to muster the faux authenticity of American Beauty, Loser ultimately looks down its nose at those it should be helping to lift up.
Credits
- Director
- Amy Heckerling
- Producers
- Amy Heckerling
- Twink Caplan
- Screenplay
- Amy Heckerling
- Director of Photography
- Rob Hahn
- Editor
- Debra Chiate
- Production Designer
- Steven Jordan
- Music
- David Kitay
- ©Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.
- Production Company
- Columbia Pictures presents an Amy Heckerling film
- Executive Producer
- John M. Eckert
- Production Co-ordinators
- Cory Porsia
- New York Crew:
- Scott Kordish
- Unit Production Managers
- John M. Eckert
- New York Crew:
- Richard Baratta
- Location Managers
- Keith Large
- New York Crew:
- Nicholas Bernstein
- Assistant Directors
- Jeff Authors
- Grant Lucibello
- New York Crew:
- Tom Razzano
- Lisa M. Rowe
- Script Supervisor
- Susan Marucci
- Casting
- Lynn Kressel
- Canada:
- Ross Clydesdale
- Camera Operators
- Andy Chmura
- New York Crew:
- Tom Weston
- David M. Dunlap
- Steadicam Operators
- Keith Murphy
- New York Crew:
- Andrew Casey
- Special Effects
- Martin Malivoire
- Art Director
- Andrew M. Stearn
- Set Designer
- Barry Isenor
- Set Decorators
- Patricia Cuccia
- New York Crew:
- Beth Kushnick
- Key Scenic Artist
- John Bannister
- Costume Designer
- Mona May
- Costume Supervisors
- Cori Burchell
- New York Crew:
- Amy Roth
- Wardrobe Supervisor
- New York Crew:
- Michelle Matland
- Make-up
- Key:
- Patricia Green
- New York Crew:
- Felice Diamond
- Hair
- Key Stylist:
- Reeve
- Stylist:
- Maureen Mestan
- New York Crew, Stylist:
- Patricia Grande
- Main Titles
- The Picture Mill
- Opticals
- Cinema Research Corporation
- Music Supervisor
- Elliot Lurie
- Music Editor
- Jeanette Surga
- Soundtrack
- "Don't Fight It Baby" - 5ive; "Freakin' You" - Jungle Brothers; "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)" - Offspring; "Get Down Tonight" - KC & the Sunshine Band; "Teenage Dirtbag" - Wheatus; "Boom" Trinket; "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" - Eiffel 65; "Sucks to Be You" - Prozzäk; "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" - Erica Lively Orchestra; "What's My Age Again?" - Blink 182; "Right Now" - SR-71; "Welcome to the Working Week" - Elvis Costello; "Go On" - J.K.; "Stop the Rock" - Apollo Four Forty; "Magna Cum Nada" - The Bloodhound Gang; "So Much for the Afterglow", "I Will Buy You a New Life" - Everclear; "Aurora" - Foo Fighters; "Cabaret" - Broadway cast, vocals: Natasha Richardson, Alan Cumming; "Mint Car" - The Cure; "Sonata in C Major, K.545 (Andante)" - Jenö Jandó; "Bad Touch"- The Bloodhound Gang; "No Myth" - Michael Penn; "Scarborough Fair/
Canticle" - Simon and Garfunkel; "Dance to the Underground" - Radio4; "She's So High" - Tal Bachman; "The Best Things in Life Are Free" - Mollie Israel; "Out of My Head"; "Man of the World" - Choreography
- Mary Ann Kellogg
- Sound Mixers
- Greg Chapman
- New York Crew:
- Michael Barosky
- Re-recording Mixers
- Tom Fleischman
- Jim Fitzpatrick
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Michael O'Farrell
- Dialogue Editors
- Alison Fisher
- Kim Drummond
- David Giammarco
- Sound Effects Editors
- Scott A. Jennings
- Mark Lanza
- Loop Group
- Reel Team
- Supervising ADR Editor
- Michael Haight
- Foley
- Artists:
- Vincent Guisetti
- Pamela Nedd Kahn
- Mixer:
- Kyle Rochlin
- Editor:
- Jonathan Klein
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- John Stoneham Jr
- Cast
- Jason Biggs
- Paul Tannek
- Mena Suvari
- Dora Diamond
- Zak Orth
- Adam
- Tom Sadoski
- Chris
- Jimmi Simpson
- Noah
- Greg Kinnear
- Professor Edward Alcott
- Dan Aykroyd
- dad
- Twink Caplan
- Gena
- Bobby Slayton
- Sal
- Robert Miano
- Victor
- Mollee Israel
- Annie
- Colleen Camp
- homeless woman
- Andy Dick
- another city worker
- Steven Wright
- panty hose customer
- Brian Backer
- doctor
- Meredith Scott Lynn
- dog-loving girl
- Stuart Cornfeld
- foreman
- Taylor Negron
- photographer
- Andrea Martin
- professor
- Scott Thomson
- cell phone guy
- Kedar Brown
- Jay
- Catherine Black
- military jacket girl
- Rick Demas
- bouncer
- Sanjay Talwar
- convenience cashier
- Tracy Dawson
- drug saleswoman
- Carolyn Goff
- Kristen
- Mike Beaver
- boy at concert
- Richard Blackburn
- security guard
- Billy Otis
- prisoner
- Jenny Kim
- student worker
- Alison Sealy-Smith
- university official
- Martin Roach
- veterinarian
- Heidi Weeks
- Saks saleswoman
- Daniela Olivieri
- store tailor
- Kavita Persaud
- Corwin Hall
- Andrew Storms
- Serena Lea
- Hi Ro students
- Nicholas Michael Bacon
- beer store clerk
- Valerie Boyle
- Colleen Reynolds
- aunts
- Jack Jessop
- grandfather
- Mallory Margel
- Paul's sister
- Patrick Mark
- bloody nose guy
- Tanja Jacobs
- Darrin Brown
- partygoers
- James Barret
- guy
- Robert Tinkler
- bar patron
- Katherine Shekter
- Robinne Fanfair
- Clare Preuss
- Sadie LeBlanc
- Silvana Kane
- Kerri Michalica
- college girls
- Geoffrey Antoine
- coffee counter guy
- Danny Truelove
- Marc McMulkin
- Jonathon Fernandes
- Tiffany Leonardo
- dancing kids
- Certificate
- 12
- Distributor
- Columbia Tristar Films (UK)
- 8,558 feet
- 95 minutes 5 seconds
- Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS
- Colour by
- DeLuxe