It wasn't long ago that everybody thought actor/director Alan Smithee
(Sean Weathers) would be a bright and shining star on the filmworld's
firmament before too long - but then the scandal broke: Seems Alan has had
sex with quite a numer of women - including a certain Kim (Erika Smith),
whose only claim so far was that her dad was on O.J. Simpson's team of
defenders -, and he has had the habit to "immortalize" their
intercourse on his cellphone. Not that in itself wouldn't be a bad thing,
a bit perverse maybe, but whatever rocks your horse ... but then his phone
gets hacked and suddenly all his private porn clips are all over the net -
which totally breaks off the relationship with many of the starlets he has
kept simultaneously and who see their career in shambles, but Kim uses the
porn clip to get her own reality TV series, and Rachael (Rachael Robbins),
a girl who he actually "made", files a class action lawsuit
against Alan - oh, not because she's particularly mad that she's in a sex
movie now, after all, she's mostly done erotica anyways, but because a
lawsuit would keep the scandal and thus her name in the news a little
longer in today's fleeting world of celebrity news. Now a lawsuit is
bad, but what's even worse is that Alan is identified as the sole baddie
in the game. Sure, he has made all these videos, but with the consent of
his sexual partners, and even if everybody believes it is, it wasn't his
fault that they leaked. And still, his career's in shambles, the project
he has had as good as financing for is falling apart, producers even from
the low end of the spectrum refuse to touch him, and he even lacks rent
money of late. There's just one woman who will stand behind him, his agent
Tina (Tina Krause), but she suggests that instead of making amends, Alan
ought to go even further for his next movie, moving into snuff territory
... Above all else, The Fappening is a very dark satire
of (especially but not only) American celebrity culture, with a special
focus of celebrity culture's obsession with porn - and the film works
because it tells its story in a non-moronic way but dressed up as a drama
mostly, though there are plenty of punchlines along the way, especially
when Weathers and Robbins, during a heated discussion start to quote the
lyrics of the Human League's "Don't You Want Me", quite a few
Kim Kardashian jokes (that feel too real to not be creepy), and a general
light-footed approach to the material. All this is carried by a competent
ensemble cast, with Tina Krause, Rachael Robbins and Erika Smith in the
key female roles deserving special praise for their subtly humourous
performances. A fun one, really! Sold on its own, but also
serves as the framing narrative of the anthology Vault
of Terror II: The Undead.
|