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Sour "Apple"
"God, Sex and Apple Pie" takes the "Secaucus 7" / "Big Chill"
formula and does nothing interesting with it.
By JOSHUA TANZER
Offoffoff.com
Click your browser's "Back" button if you've heard this one before — the one about the old 30-something friends who reunite for a long weekend of togetherness, stunning revelations and personal growth.
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| | | GOD, SEX AND APPLE PIE | Directed by: Paul Leaf.
Written by: Jerome Courshon.
Cast: Jerome Courshon, Penelope Crabtree, Katy Kurtzman, Andrea Leithe, Maria McCann, Phil Palisoul, Mark Porro, Steve Rifkin, Greg Wrangler.
Related links: Official site |
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"God, Sex and Apple Pie" avails itself of the same exact plot device as "The Return of the Secaucus Seven" and "The Big Chill," which would be fine if this reunion at least had well-honed characters and did something interesting with them once they were stuck together in one place. But it really doesn't.
The ensemble cast sharing a cabin for the weekend includes an investment banker, a lawyer, a TV reporter, an artist, a musician and a standup comedian. Each of the men has his individual problem to deal with, from alcoholism to commitment issues, from marital infidelity to insider trading. (Dated references to Michael Milken are just one of the clues that the film was probably shot 10 years ago.) The one character who's conspicuously not one of the beautiful people has issues about being dorky-looking. Each of the women has problems with her man not opening up to her.
These problems come off as contrived just for purposes of making a movie, and they're all resolved by the end so that everybody can live happily ever after. The personal sharing that goes on along the way is often trite. In the girl-talk portion of the show, the ladies all have a laugh over the observation that "a hard man is good to find." At dinner, most of the SUV-driving characters agree that harming the environment is bad. A running joke has to do with leaving a plate of rotten food (maybe that's the apple pie from the title) out on the porch for everyone to enjoy as they arrive, leading us to wonder whether these are 30-somethings or 3-somethings.
And don't be fooled, incidentally, by the title of "God, Sex and Apple Pie" — there's little of any of these ingredients in the film, notably ingredient number two. You can almost predict that any movie that has to put "sex" in the title to get your attention is struggling to figure out what it's about — and sexiness isn't it. This film doesn't have the guts to explore the kinds of issues it promises in the title or its slogan, "3 days, 9 friends, 1 pair of handcuffs" — it chickens out every time there's a chance of anything serious happening.
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SEPTEMBER 21, 2001
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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