Movie review: Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Maybe I'm more of a prude than I realized.

by John P. Meyer

A fanboy comment on IMDB refers to the dialogue in Zack & Miri Make a Porno as "bad ass," and by that I guess he means potty mouth. The aural experience of sitting through Kevin Smith's latest directorial outing is like listening to a longish episode of Deadwood devoid of the wit and nuance, though lacking none of the uses of the word "fuck" and its myriad participial and adjectival variations.

Life in the chilly, post-industrial Northeast is hard for roomies-without-privileges Zack and Miri (Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks), and it's getting harder. Not only do the former high school pals live in a drafty clapboard hovel and work mindless minimum wage jobs to make ends meet (though not their ends - did I mention no privileges?) - lately that ends-meeting part has become something of a problem, to the point that the landlord has turned off the water on the eve of their class reunion.

It's at this function that the seeds of a money-making idea are planted (ahem) in the desperately-receptive brain of Zack. He has previously observed the popularity of a viral video making the rounds of the interwebs which captured Miri changing clothes in the back room of the coffee house where he works - its chief appeal centered not on her semi-nudity, but on the starring comedic role played by her granny panties.

Couple this insight with the hilarious conversation he has at the reunion with a visitor from El Lay (Justin Long, as gay porn star Brandon) and his idea for avoiding homelessness rears its little head fully blown, if you'll excuse the expression.

As Zack and Miri drown their respective sorrows at a local bent elbow joint (thereby delaying their return to the inhospitable apartment), he proposes that they get into the moviemaking business - and he's talking about the low-overhead, high-profit, private enterprise variety. It's at this point that the far-fetched nature of the plot begins to be fully explored.

See, Zack and Miri have been rooming together for something like five years. She's drop-dead gorgeous (I mean, just look at her) and he's - um - not, but the way they discuss their masturbatory habits you'd assume that one or the other of them were either partnered up or gay or totally turned off by each other, which turns out (as we discover) not to be the case. Delving further into the realm of fantasyland, when Zack proposes the scheme of sinking all their available cash resources (and screw the overdue rent) into the production of a sex film - with them as the protagonists - she mulls it over briefly and then decides - what the heck? - that might be worth trying.

Which brings about a casting call, script development and location procurement, leading up to the day of the big shoot. (Or night, actually, since the location they end up procuring is the closed-for-business coffee house where Zack is tenuously employed.)

The genius filmmakers have come up with what they consider to be a catchy title for their rock-bottom budget production: "Star Whores." (Hasn't that been done already?) Zack's co-worker Delaney (Craig Robinson) offers to purchase a hi-def videocam to film the action. The cast of on-camera "talent" is fleshed out with a variety of would-be porn prodigies including Lester (Jason Mewes), Barry (Rick Mabe), the pneumatic Stacey (Katie Morgan) and a seasoned entertainer named Bubbles (Traci Lords, typecast).

While the supporting players go through their motions without any angst whatsoever (while displaying a comcomitant lack of passion), Zack and Miri are having some pre-scene anxiety, though neither will admit it to the other. Improbably, this culminates in them becoming genuinely amorous on the set, to the point that their staged copulation ends up being one of those earth-moving, tide-coming-in things we read about in trashy romance novels. (And by "we," I mean "not me.")

Zack and Miri's sudden discovery of a shared love for each other serves as a complicating factor that throws a monkey wrench into the remainder of the filming schedule, threatening to end their long-standing complication-free and mutually beneficial (?) shared living arrangement.

There are amusing incidents in the film (though far fewer than there ought to have been), but this reviewer's primary emotion while sitting in the theater amongst a mixed group of other jaded filmgoers was one of embarrassment bordering on discomfort. While the sex is simulated and there's actually very little nudity on display, the frank verbal depictions of sexual mechanics, self-pleasuring devices and alternative - um - intromission sites come one after the other without a great deal of time for the recovery of one's equilibrium. The experience is similar to walking in unawares on a family member as they're surfing one-handed through the naughty nether-realms of the 'net.

Or maybe I'm just more of a prude than I realized. And I'm good with that.