Good Dick is not your typical romantic comedy. The title probably told you that.

Marianna Palka (also the movie’s writer and director) plays an anti-social, reclusive woman who only ventures out of her apartment to stock up on soft-porn videos, and Jason Ritter plays the video store clerk who follows her home and gradually becomes a part of her life. He is incredibly cute in a goofy way, and his optimism and good-natured persistence appear to repel and appeal to her in equal measure.

When he first pursues her, you may wonder why he does so; what this handsome, amiable guy seems to value so much in a dishevelled, hostile woman, but during the movie we realise that he has his own issues, and that he is somehow able to see her potential beneath all the barriers she has set up to stop people from getting close to her. As soon as he enters her apartment he starts to tidy it up, and he later offers her a gift but insists on washing her hair before she can have it. Though he constantly pushes past the barriers she has erected around herself, he does so in a way that doesn’t threaten her peace of mind, and accepts a good amount of verbal abuse from her without appearing to mind.

Although her apartment becomes a haven for him, it was her prison from something that would only be alluded to in the last few minutes of the movie.

I noticed that the men in this movie appeared to be acting in a more submissive role, which might normally be attributed to women. It was also clear that Palka’s character has a messed up relationship with her sexuality. At one point she suddenly jumps on Ritter and pretends to have sex with him as if she were a man. She tells him that penises are ugly (actually I agree with that!) and is visibly and deeply repulsed by the Zen Pussy: A Meditation On Eleven Vulvas video.

Derek, another video store worker, gets ridiculed for not knowing the location of the clitoris; Simon mourns the end of his relationship and is defended when Derek tries to ridicule him; and Simon and Derek later enjoy watching the Zen Pussy video.

Though I really enjoyed the movie, I felt that the developments occurring in the last 10 minutes were rushed. Overall though, it was a funny, sweet, and off-beat movie about love and sex, and I was glad to be able to see it at one of the few cinemas showing it.

Great soundtrack too; here’s the track from the opening sequence. Big Boots by Hello Stranger

Urban Recluse Rating:

Written by PJ | Posted in movies

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