I ducked out of last night’s Tomb Raider press screening around 7:55 pm or thereabouts. On my way out I noticed a lively crowd congregated in the Arclight lobby. I quickly learned it was a premiere screening for Max Winkler‘s Flower (The Orchard, 3.16). I never got invited to a screening, but it’s not like Flower was hotly buzzed about when it played the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival or, you know, is currently setting Twitter ablaze.
Given the reviews it got last spring from The Hollywood Reporter‘s Frank Scheck, Slant‘s Chuck Bowen and TheWrap‘s Dan Callahan, the publicists appear to be relying on the old hide-the-ball strategy.
“There’s nary a believable moment in Winkler’s edgy dark comedy about a rebellious teen girl (Zoey Deutch) who’s clearly meant to be amusingly crass but instead comes across as emotionally disturbed,” Scheck wrote. “Uneasily combining its determinedly edgy plotline with failed sentimentality, Flower is redeemed only by Zoey Deutch’s magnetic performance, which would be star-making if in the service of a better vehicle. The film also squanders the talents of such reliable comic pros as Kathryn Hahn and Adam Scott.”
The “edgy” plot is basically about Deutch’s Erica giving blowjobs to older guys in order to blackmail them for inappropriate sexual contact, and then deciding to nail an older guy named Will (Scott) for having allegedly molested Luke (Joey Morgan), the overweight, oxy-addicted son of her mom’s boyfriend.
Two thoughts about the trailer: (a) Deutch, who delivered a likable, easy-vibe lead performance in Richard Linklater‘s Everybody Wants Some!! (’16), has, as Erica, a brashly assertive Millenial screwball quality — you can tell right away that she’s “got it” as far as that term applies; and (b) why is Morgan, the red-haired, whale-sized guy whose sexual victimhood is the whole reason for the revenge plot…why doesn’t the trailer show Morgan saying a line or two?
Deutch, 24, has been acting for nine years. She’s the daughter of Lea Thompson and director Howard Deutch.
Max Winkler, Zoey Deutch.
