When Will I Be Loved

When Will I Be Loved - *1/2

When a movie's best moment comes from a bit of obscenity courtesy of Mike Tyson, the writing is most certainly on the wall. James Toback ("Bugsy") wrote and directed this taudry tale of the sexual awakening of a woman named Vera Barrie (Neve Campbell), who is goated into sleeping with a billionaire old man (Dominic Chianese) for $100,000 by her boyfriend Ford (Frederick Weller). Unfortunately, this movie isn't even on a level with "Indecent Proposal", the movie it not so subtly lifts material from. It's presentation is like a mix of Before Sunrise, Closer and a couple of softcore porn films thrown in for good measure. However, the director's attempts to lift the material out of mediocrity fail miserably; this isn't smart wry drama with sex thrown in for good measure, it's a sex drama with pretension. The sound quality also stands out to me; whenever the characters are talking over a backing soundtrack they have to compete to be heard. It's a shock that a movie featuring a cameo by music mogul Damon Dash would be so amateurish on that front. I also take issue with the movie's overall portrayal of the Vera character. For 81 minutes, she essentially walks around hooking up with and/or flirting with everyone in sight. Then she runs back to Ford/her parents seemingly helpless. This isn't a tale of female empowerment; it's a wet dream. Nothing to see here, unless you're a Neve loving heterosexual man, and in that case there's always P2P programs. Thumbs down.