Christina Ricci seems to have finally realized that, at the rate of her forehead's growth, she will be able to pass as a Metallunan by her 26th year, and has resigned herself to movies about monsters, freaks, and crazy people. Lucky for her, this one has a lot from all three categories.
In it, she plays Ellie, the elder of a pair of orphaned siblings with freakish facial proportions who live in their parent's home in Hollywood; we know this because the Hollywood sign is flashed on screen every few minutes for the duration of the movie for reasons no sane, mortal mind should think too hard about. Ellie works at a TV station with an uncommonly unpleasant and hostile colleague named Joanie, who has, surprisingly, never had to deal with a restraining order; in her off hours, helps her boyfriend, Jake, a young man of equally non-euclidean facial geometry, with the preparation of his movie-themed club. When she is not doing either of those things, she is driving her little brother, Jimmy, around and wrinkling her forehead at the tales of his high school troubles.
Jimmy is picked on and harassed by his school's current That Boy Who Got Held Back About Ten Years, whom most people simply call 'Bo' because they are lazy, and also made a little uncomfortable by his aura of abject failure, and anyway there'll be another one along just as soon as this one realizes that he can just DROP OUT. Bo takes an interest in torturing Jimmy, no doubt for his ridiculously tiny ears (I know they made me wanna punch something), and his interest in the one girl that Bo would be pursuing, were he legally allowed to do so. Bo also is a gung-ho captain of the wrestling team, and has an unhealthy obsession with accusing other boys of being gay. This will be important for later (NO PEEKING!).
One night while Ellie is driving Jimmy and his dog, Zipper, around and around, they are involved in a two-car-plus-animal accident during which the occupant of the other car is dragged off by some unknown hairy beast and they are both bitten. Suddenly, the movie's overly-banal plot is thrown off-course into a world of unknown possibilities, minor characters start being killed and maimed, and weird things start happening to Ellie and Jimmy. YOU WILL NEVER GUESS WHERE THIS IS HEADED! No, seriously!
I'm not going to spoil the end, except to say that everyone learns a valuable lesson about family, self-esteem, placing your life in the hands of the internet, and how a werewolf in the grip of a full moon maintains enough manual dexterity to flip someone the bird.
*** It killed time OK.
In it, she plays Ellie, the elder of a pair of orphaned siblings with freakish facial proportions who live in their parent's home in Hollywood; we know this because the Hollywood sign is flashed on screen every few minutes for the duration of the movie for reasons no sane, mortal mind should think too hard about. Ellie works at a TV station with an uncommonly unpleasant and hostile colleague named Joanie, who has, surprisingly, never had to deal with a restraining order; in her off hours, helps her boyfriend, Jake, a young man of equally non-euclidean facial geometry, with the preparation of his movie-themed club. When she is not doing either of those things, she is driving her little brother, Jimmy, around and wrinkling her forehead at the tales of his high school troubles.
Jimmy is picked on and harassed by his school's current That Boy Who Got Held Back About Ten Years, whom most people simply call 'Bo' because they are lazy, and also made a little uncomfortable by his aura of abject failure, and anyway there'll be another one along just as soon as this one realizes that he can just DROP OUT. Bo takes an interest in torturing Jimmy, no doubt for his ridiculously tiny ears (I know they made me wanna punch something), and his interest in the one girl that Bo would be pursuing, were he legally allowed to do so. Bo also is a gung-ho captain of the wrestling team, and has an unhealthy obsession with accusing other boys of being gay. This will be important for later (NO PEEKING!).
One night while Ellie is driving Jimmy and his dog, Zipper, around and around, they are involved in a two-car-plus-animal accident during which the occupant of the other car is dragged off by some unknown hairy beast and they are both bitten. Suddenly, the movie's overly-banal plot is thrown off-course into a world of unknown possibilities, minor characters start being killed and maimed, and weird things start happening to Ellie and Jimmy. YOU WILL NEVER GUESS WHERE THIS IS HEADED! No, seriously!
I'm not going to spoil the end, except to say that everyone learns a valuable lesson about family, self-esteem, placing your life in the hands of the internet, and how a werewolf in the grip of a full moon maintains enough manual dexterity to flip someone the bird.
*** It killed time OK.