Full Frontal is a story within a story within a story, and watching it feels a bit like standing in a hall of mirrors.
A whole pack of actors -- Catherine Keener, David Duchovny, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Terence Stamp, Blair Underwood, David Hyde Pierce and on and on -- wander through this story about love and death and the whole damn thing.
If there's a centre to this, it could be the Catherine Keener tale, which involves a fairly demented personnel executive (Keener), her dull husband (David Hyde Pierce), her lover, her masseuse, her sister, her fears and aspirations.
On the other hand, we may feel it's the central thing because of a deep and abiding admiration for Keener's work. So don't take our word for it.
Most of the main characters are introduced at the beginning, but as Julia Roberts and Blair Underwood both play actors, Full Frontal next zooms into another movie altogether, that being the movie that Roberts and Underwood star in together. He plays an actor. She plays a reporter. Still with us?
Thought not.
Since Full Frontal -- by big-time director Steven Soderbergh -- isn't really about anything, we can tell you that it's interesting to watch most of the time, but mostly in the oddest voyeur sort of way. It's shot on digital. This means it 'looks' a certain way that's almost guaranteed to take you out of the story, and since there is no story, the whole thing starts to feel like an exercise in clever.
About this movie -- it's difficult not to type the word "self-conscious." It's even more difficult not to type the word "pretentious."
Then again, maybe Full Frontal is really all about a viewer's reaction. Okay. So. If the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves, dear Brutus, etc., that's okay too, but not at $13 a pop.
There are interesting moments in the movie within a movie. There are some sweet performances in both. Some of the best bits are part of a play about Hitler that stars an egomaniacal moron actor.
On one or two occasions you'll forget if you are watching the movie, the movie within the movie, or the social performance of real people in fake social circumstances. It doesn't seem to matter.
Certainly, the artifice involved in moviemaking is driven home in Full Frontal. With a club. No sooner is your disbelief willingly suspended, than something happens to remind you that you've been caught up in a process of fakery.
Geez. At the movies? Who knew?
(This film is rated PG)
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