Loverboy Review

June 8, 2006 3:47 PM
by [email]

What kind of woman names her son “Loverboy”? One you don’t want to spend 90 minutes watching a movie about. Kevin Bacon’s second time in the director’s chair (and first feature film) is a boring, self-indulgent waste of time.

Kyra Sedgwick (Bacon’s wife and current star of TNT’s “The Closer”) plays Emily, a woman who wants nothing to do with men-except for their sperm. After failing to impregnate via artificial insemination, she decides to do it the old fashioned way, with dozens of random men. Eventually, she succeeds and the result is Paul (Dominic Scott Kay), who she insists on repeatedly calling “Loverboy,” much to his consternation.

The main story line is Emily’s relationship with six-year-old Paul. At first, it appears Emily is an uber-cool mother. She spoils him completely, plays with him like a big kid (which is essentially what she is) and is always “there for him.”

But baby has to fly at some point and mom clips his wings at every opportunity. She is unwilling to let him out of physical contact, let alone sight - even to play with other children his age. Symbolically, he says “My name is Paul,” every time she calls him Loverboy. It’s cute the first time. Positively trite and boring when essentially the same interaction repeats over and over and over.

And that’s the problem with this movie. Watching an unstable woman interact with a six-year-old is only interesting for about ten minutes, which makes Loverboy about 45 minutes too long.

Through flashbacks, we learn Emily’s extreme smothering and inability to let go is caused by the lack of love and attention by her drugged out, always horny parents (Bacon and Marisa Tomei). While these somewhat amusing vignettes are moderately more interesting than Emily’s relationship with Paul, they are not enough to save the movie.

The most interesting scenes are at the beginning, when the normally mousy Sedgwick vamps up to attract her one-time fuck, prospective fathers. Who knew she had such a hot bod? But like every other flashback scene, we are quickly brought back to Emily and Loverboy.

The lesson of Loverboy lies in the blindness of family. The irony, however, is that I’m not talking about the movie itself, but the manner of its creation-a thoroughly incestuous affair.

Sedgwick adored the novel (by Victoria Redel) and gave it to Bacon. He fell in love too and decided to direct his wife as the main character. Their real life daughter plays the ten-year-old Emily, their son plays a neighbor boy, Bacon’s brother did the music and most of the rest of the roles are populated by one-degree of separation friends such as Tomei, Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, Blair Brown, Cambell Scott and others.

Apparently, no one in this close circle was objective enough to tell Bacon his movie just doesn’t work.

As a director, Bacon appears technically sound. He also gives a solid performance, as usual, as Emily’s swinging 60’s father. His movie, however, is simply uninteresting.

I give Loverboy ½ of a star.