OK – so down-on-his-luck guy meets a potty-mouthed vixen when she LITERALLY jumps into his car. But Dirty Beautiful is NOT your run-of-the-mill mumblecore romantic comedy!
What elevates Dirty Beautiful is that writer-director Tim Bartell has invented two characters that we’re not used to seeing. The guy and the gal each has a unique neediness that drives this offbeat battle of the sexes.
The guy is really a talented storyboard artist, but he THINKS that he is a screenwriter, which means that he spends his days not actually screenwriting, but shuffling and reshuffling his notecards. He’s drawing just enough storyboards to afford food, an apartment next to the garbage, a couple of unwashed t-shirts and a car that can’t even “make it to the 405”. And he’s oddly yearning to HAVE a girlfriend (but not prowling for sex with a woman who could turn into a girlfriend). Instead he aches to have a girlfriend primarily for the status of having a girlfriend.
She has been homeless, would mainline tequila if she could, and is, well, a HANDFUL. She’s been damaged by experiences in her past, and brings extreme volatility into his all too predictable lifestyle. And she exposes the fantasy that is trapping him in professional and personal limbo.
All in all, Dirty Beautiful is a hoot. Plus there’s the occasional memorable dialogue, like “Hey, girls that give hand jobs can be great moms. God!”
Cinequest is hosting Dirty Beautiful’s world premiere on Saturday night February 28 at 9:30 in Camera 12 with additional screenings on March 1 and March 3.
[MILD SPOILER: When the relationship becomes belligerent, each tries to hunker down and try to outlast the other. That’s not just for the plot, it’s because there’s something about each character ’s neediness that makes them dig in.]