Zack and Miri Make a Porno

I think I know why director Kevin Smith doesn't have a day job. If his character's work ethics are even vaguely similar to his, he's better off doing something creative, far, far away from real people.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno does exactly what it says on the tin - best friends since high school, Zack and Miri decide that, in order to pay off their bills, they should make a porn film. While one character is easy to sympathize with, it's easy to believe that the other one is getting far, far more than he could possibly deserve.

Miri is a beautiful girl, with low confidence and few friends apart from Zack, who continually tells her that she's just as unattractive as she once was in high school (and really, if she did look like that in high school, her classmates were clearly blind). He also steals her handwarmer (that's just mean), and has such an utterly terrible working attitude that's it's hardly surprising that they can't pay their bills. Later in the film (and here's a bit of a spoiler) he runs away completely, abandoning Miri to their debts. What a nice guy. What a great friend.

The chemistry between Miri (Elizabeth Banks) and Zack (Seth Rogen) seems utterly fake. The sexual tension is written in but not felt, and laid on with a trowel. Zack and Miri don't feel like friends or potential lovers, however desperately the script wants you to think that. The film does have some funny moments, and a great scene from Justin Long, but generally speaking, it has the same problems I've seen in other Smith films, and other Rogen films, with very few of the good points. Although, you do get to see Jason Mewes naked (yum). Definitely worth the wait. I was honestly expecting just the gratuitous female nude shots - well done for being non-sexist.

I should probably confess here that, while I don't mind Kevin Smith, I really don't like Seth Rogen, because I think he abuses his position as a writer and/or producer in order to act out his fantasies with beautiful actresses. Despite purposefully making himself less attractive than the people leading male roles traditionally go to, he still always gets the girl. And that would be admirable if he didn't make sure that the 'girl' in question is a stunning up-and-coming actress. It would be good if someone at least acknowledged that these girls are way too good for him, even in the films that he's written - and I don't just mean his own character, in some kind of self-deprecating scene designed to make us think he's obviously really sweet and romantic and has hidden depths. To quote from an article on Alternate Takes (a fantastic film site, go take a look);

Laura Mulvey famously argued that in classical Hollywood cinema, the female serves as the “bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning” - that women are objectified by the implicitly male gaze of the camera, the audience, and the male lead.

Now, that may be true of most movies, but there's no need to be quite so transparent about it, is there Rogen?

Zack and Miri is funny, but forgettable, and supremely irritating in several ways. It's also quite amazing just how Miri's character manages to keep her curls intact with no water or electricity.