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Full Frontal (film)

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Full Frontal
Theatrical release poster
Directed bySteven Soderbergh
Written byColeman Hough
Produced byGregory Jacobs
Scott Kramer
Starring
Edited bySarah Flack
Music byJacques Davidovici
Distributed byMiramax Films
Release date
  • August 2, 2002 (2002-08-02)
Running time
101 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2 million[1]
Box office$3.4 million[1]

Full Frontal is a 2002 American comedy-drama film by Steven Soderbergh about a day in the life of a handful of characters in Hollywood. It stars Catherine Keener, Blair Underwood, David Duchovny, Julia Roberts, Mary McCormack, Nicky Katt, Brad Pitt, and David Hyde Pierce. The film was shot on digital video using the Canon XL-1s in under a month. The film blurs the line between what is real and what is fiction in its depiction of a film within a film (and possibly within another).

Cast

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Production

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The film was announced in 2001 and Catherine Keener was the first actor attached to the project, named How to Survive a Hotel Room Fire.[2] It was billed by Miramax as "an unofficial sequel of sorts" to Sex, Lies, and Videotape.[3] In October, Julia Roberts, David Hyde Pierce, and David Duchovny were announced as leads in the project, and after the September 11 attacks, the film title was changed to The Art of Negotiating a Turn.[4]

After a phone call with Harvey Weinstein because he did not like the new movie title, Soderbergh suggested the title Full Frontal.[5] Production on the film began on November 6, 2001.[6]

The character named Harvey (played by Jeff Garlin) is a reference to Weinstein himself.[7]

Release

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Box office

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Full Frontal had a limited release in the United States on August 2, 2002, opening in 208 theaters, and earning $739,834 its first weekend.[1] The film was released in the United Kingdom on May 23, 2003, and failed to reach the Top 10.[8]

Critical response

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Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 39% based on reviews from 145 critics. The site's consensus reads: "An [sic] confusing movie made worse by the poor camera work."[9]

Writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert called Full Frontal "a film so amateurish that only the professionalism of some of the actors makes it watchable".[10] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "When a set of pre-shooting guidelines a director came up with for his actors turns out to be cleverer, better written and of considerable more interest than the finished film, that's a bad sign. A very bad sign."[11]

Other critics praised Soderbergh for his experimental approach.[12][13] Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post gave an overall positive review, but wrote, "Full Frontal is a movie about people making movies about movies, and Soderbergh edits so quickly and effortlessly between those layers of reality that a concentrically ordered universe similar to nesting Russian dolls quickly begins to feel more like a hall of mirrors. Watching Full Frontal is a vertiginous, disorienting experience, one that reflects its characters with grotesque, funny and sometimes horrifying exaggeration. No matter how much fun it is to watch – and for hard-core movie fans, it is often enormous fun – there's a certain relief when it stops and we're popped back out to our banal, one-track lives."[14]

USA Today gave the film three out of four stars, recommending it for its "humor and talented cast".[15]

Retrospective reviews

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In 2016, Lawrence Garcia wrote in an essay for Mubi that the film’s amateurish filming techniques were precisely Soderbergh’s point, saying Full Frontal "is a film about aesthetics, or more specifically the phoniness of it; that is, it’s concerned mainly with the gulf between an object, its presentation, and interpretation, with the L.A. lifestyle (which includes a neighbor that perpetually wears a Dracula costume) providing the perfect backdrop."[16] Garcia did say the film’s "major flaw is that while individual scenes are often amusing, the film as a whole never quite coheres."[16]

For the 20th anniversary of the film, writer Craig J. Clark noted "the parallels between [the behavior of the character Gus]…and the accusations leveled at executive producer Harvey Weinstein, one of the handful of sexual predators ensnared by the #MeToo movement whose punishment appears to be sticking. What makes the film especially curious as a cultural artifact is Gus is not its only Weinstein stand-in", referring to Garlin’s character, as well.[7]

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Full Frontal (2002)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved June 10, 2009.
  2. ^ "Duchovny May Join Julia Roberts in Soderbergh's 'How to Survive a Hotel Room Fire'". The Hollywood Reporter. September 10, 2001. Archived from the original on November 1, 2001. Retrieved September 21, 2019 – via hive4media.com.
  3. ^ "Casting under way for sex, lies and videotape sequel". The Guardian. July 13, 2001. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  4. ^ "Film Entitled How To Survive A Hotel Room Fire May Be Changed". October 3, 2001. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  5. ^ Mitchell, Elvis (July 28, 2002). "FILM; Sketching, For a Change, On Screen". The New York Times. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  6. ^ "Steven Soderbergh Begins Production on 'Full Frontal,' A Contemporary Comedy for Miramax Films". PR Newswire. Cision. November 14, 2001. Archived from the original on November 15, 2001. Retrieved June 9, 2019 – via Yahoo.com.
  7. ^ a b Clark, Craig J. (August 1, 2022). "Soderbergh Lets It All Hang Out: Full Frontal at 20". Crooked Marquee. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  8. ^ "UK Weekend Box Office 23rd May 2003 - 25th May 2003". www.25thframe.co.uk. Retrieved December 8, 2018.
  9. ^ "Full Frontal". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved August 27, 2017.
  10. ^ Ebert, Roger (August 2, 2002). "Full Frontal". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved June 10, 2009.
  11. ^ Turan, Kenneth (August 2, 2002). "'Full Frontal': Less Overhead, and Drama". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  12. ^ LaSalle, Mick (August 2, 2002). "Fun, just not profound / Unusual 'Full Frontal' shows Soderbergh's true colors". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  13. ^ Taylor, Ella (August 2, 2002). "Lost and Found". LA Weekly. Archived from the original on August 2, 2002. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  14. ^ Hornaday, Ann (August 2, 2002). "'Full Frontal': Modest Takeoff". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  15. ^ Puig, Claudia (August 2, 2002). "Full Frontal exposes humor, not much skin". USA Today. Retrieved June 10, 2009.
  16. ^ a b Garcia, Lawrence (September 9, 2016). "Digital Release: Steven Soderbergh's "Full Frontal"". Mubi. September 9, 2016. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
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