Review of Dummy

Dummy (2002)
7/10
Little wooden man
3 October 2005
Greg Pritikin's "Dummy" kept reminding us about another film, "Napoleon Dynamite", in that both heroes of the films are kind souls that stick like sore thumbs in a society and films that are dominated by jerks and bullies.

"Dummy" presents a family that doesn't appear to be too functional. Although there is a lack of eccentricity, Steven, is deemed too odd, by his sister, or the people he comes in contact with. Steven is a good soul trying to come to terms with life, in general. By deciding to become a ventriloquist, his inner self gets an outlet for expressing how he feels, but few, including his foul-mouthed friend, Fangora, understands him.

When he meets the beautiful Lorena, who has processed his unemployment claim, Steven begins to chance and come out of his shell because of what he feels for the young woman who has had a hard life herself and is in need of a kind soul like Steven.

The film will conquer anyone's heart because of the appealing performance of Adrien Brody. Vera Farmiga, as Lorena, fills the screen with her beauty and her common sense. Milla Jovovich is Fangora, the well intentioned friend with a motor mouth and a vocabulary to match. Ileana Douglas, Jessica Walter and Ron Leibman are seen as Steve's sister and parents respectively.

No doubt Greg Pritikin will go to bigger and better things, but he is to be commended for creating a character of Steve, something one doesn't get to see much in the American cinema.
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