Kevin Smith blatantly invades Judd Apatow territory with Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which not
only blends the bawdy with the unabashedly sentimental (a vein Smith has
himself, admittedly, tapped before in the superior Chasing Amy), but also borrows Apatow’s favorite everyman in
portly, scruffy Seth Rogen. It’s not an altogether unsuccessful tack to take,
and certainly results in more profanely amusing bits than were found in Smith’s
recent clunkers. Yet the sweetness of his tale – about two lifelong friends’
attempts to avoid homelessness by making money through the production of a porn
film – is of such an eye-rollingly corny, contrived variety that the enterprise
is salvaged solely by the luminous, versatile Elizabeth Banks. As Miri, Banks
charmingly embodies something akin to a geeky ideal, a drop-dead beauty who’s
cool enough to be uncool, her magnetism coming not merely from her looks,
self-deprecating sense of humor, or comfort with dirty talk, but also from her
status as an unsuccessful babe who’d cohabitate with a schlep like Zack in a
dilapidated apartment and agree to have sex on video to subsist. This, of
course, makes her a complete and utter fantasy, and Smith’s film (poorly lit
and shot, as usual) is best when it simply adores her as a pinnacle of dreamy
desire, the type of unrealistic hottie who’s awkward, insecure, happy boozing
it up in dingy dives, and at ease discussing anal sex. Naturally, however,
there are conventions to be adhered to, and thus despite a few extremely lewd
sequences, Zack and Miri – especially
during a rote third act in which the best friends can’t just screw because, regardless
of their supposed brother-sister rapport, they deep-down luuuuuuv each other – proves only a passably conventional rom-com
squishfest decked out with Smith’s usual pop-culture references.
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