Easy

This is basically a chick-flick, a perspective on modern dating in the middle class, as written and directed by a woman.

Jamie is a beautiful and smart person, but she is a self-described "jerk magnet" who has carved a niche for herself as the girl with an "easy" reputation - the sexy girl who has sex on the first date, then either fails to see the guy again or gets enmeshed in a doomed short-term relationship. The film shows her trials and tribulations, and catalogues her path to enlightenment. The film could be a forgotten episode of Sex and the City, except that Jamie is a bit quirky - we see her making a stoned riff on a TV show, giving an enema to a turtle, and fantasizing about sex with Homer Simpson.

The comedy is rarely funny (unless you guffaw at Sex and the City), but the characters seem like real people, and are generally likeable and dimensional people facing authentic and complicated choices. There are no saints or Snidely Whiplash villains. The individual situations and relationships do seem authentic in the moment, but some of it would sound very contrived if I described it. For instance, Jamie's job is "product namer," and she works at home, so she's one of about three of those in the world, but her employment is no rarer than her dream man's. He is a successful professional poet.

Is there "male appeal"? Well, the film does have quite a bit of topless nudity in several sex scenes which seem quite authentic, and Marguerite Moreau (of TV's "Life as We Know It") is tres cute. Apart from that, there is nothing here which will appeal to you unless you have a minimum of one vagina.

DVD INFO

No features except the original theatrical trailer
the transfer is not anamorphically enhanced, and is not especially vivid

NUDITY REPORT

Marguerite Moreau shows her breasts several times, and the top of her bum in a sex scene
Naveen Andrews shows him bum.

The Critics Vote ...

No major critics scored it, but it did get about 10-20 reviews in print sources based in New York and L.A.

Rotten Tomatoes summary. 56% positive.

Metacritic.com. 64/100

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 4.1/10. This seems too low to me. It is not a bad movie, just one targeted at young dating females. It seems to me that it should score between 5.5 and 6.5. (Women have given it a mean score of 6.0, men 5.3, but it is ranked lower overall based on IMDb's rating voodoo.)

Box Office Mojo. It may as well have gone straight to video. It appeared in six theaters and grossed $21,000.

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this is a C. It's not exceptional, but is a satisfactory film giving the female perspective on the modern, urban, middle-class dating scene.