Directed by Marianna Palka. Starring Jason Ritter, Marianna Palka, Eric Edelstein, Mark Webber, Martin Starr, Tom Arnold 16 cert, Kino Cork, 86 min ***
THERE HAVE been so many movies in recent years with video store clerks as their protagonists that there may well be several theses on the subject already. This latest screen version is drawn according to stereotype, being male, sensitive, in his early 20s, and knowing a lot more about movies than about dealing with real life. He is such a slacker that he lives in his car.
We never learn his name, which is also the case with the customer who arouses his attention when she hires pornographic videos from the Cinefile store in Los Angeles. He becomes obsessed with her, noting her address from the store's database and persistently inventing excuses to call by her apartment. She's a neurotic loner who doesn't work and who spends her days enjoying herself while watching the movies she rents.
She is cold, aggressive and insulting, while the video store clerk is warm and coaxing as he insinuates himself into her company. She refuses to have any physical contact with him, whereas he is longing for a more intimate relationship.
The consequences are as quirky as we have come to expect from US independent productions, although the premise proves quite intriguing and turns unexpectedly affecting.
It is not so surprising when it reveals dark secrets from the pasts of both these lonely people. And, of course, it is peppered with movie references, visual and verbal. The jury at this year's Edinburgh Film Festival gave the award for best new director to Marianna Palka, who also wrote the screenplay and plays one of the two leading roles with grim conviction.
Her co-star, Jason Ritter, who co-produced the film with her, is no less committed in the more engaging of the two roles. Returning to our screens next week as Jeb Bush in Oliver Stone's W, he is the son of the late actor John Ritter and the grandson of country singer and actor Tex Ritter.
Good Dick- the title is best explained by the movie itself - features cameo appearances from Tom Arnold as the woman's father and Charles Durning and Bryce Dallas Howard as Cinefile customers.
