Saturday Night at the Movies
The cook, the epidemiologist, the thief and his lover
Loosies: What does it have in its pocketses?
Oh, indie love story (sigh). How I adore your predictably unpredictable mélange of quirky characterization and pithy observation. So low in budget, so rich in substance! Fly! Take spray can in talon, spread wide your wings of gossamer, and boldly soar heavenward to tag the marquee of Hollywood convention in shades of hipster irony…OK, too flowery? I just thought that since this is sort of, Valentine’s Day “week” (yes I know I’m stretching), you would indulge me if I got in touch with my inner Byron. Anyway, there’s a pair of new films out concerning Cupid’s more scattershot tendencies.
Loosies is a hit-and-miss affair about, well, a hit-and-miss affair between a slick New York City pickpocket named Bobby (Peter Facinelli) and a barmaid named Lucy (Jaimie Alexander) who Meet Cute one day, when they bump into each other on a crowded Manhattan sidewalk. However, when a pickpocket bumps into you, it’s usually not an “accident”. See, Bobby (who goes about his larcenous rounds disguised as a well-appointed stockbroker) does a little double dipping while he’s at “work”. He has developed a unique variation on speed dating. If he espies an attractive prospect amongst his victims, he nobly returns her “lost” wallet or purse. An “honest” guy…with GQ looks? Guaranteed icebreaker (yeah, he’s an asshole). Due to his “true” profession, he also prefers to keep his relationships casual (and relatively brief), lest his cover is blown.
However, I’m getting a little ahead of the narrative. When we first meet Bobby, his fling with Lucy is history. His current concern is with his fence, a somewhat sociopathic fellow named Jax (Vincent Gallo). Jax is not happy with the fact that Bobby has jeopardized his enterprise by filching the badge of a NYC detective (Michael Madsen), who is now hot on Bobby’s trail. Bobby is also suffering through a personality clash with Carl (Joe Pantoliano), who has recently started dating Bobby’s mother (Marianne Leone). As if his stress levels aren’t elevated enough, Lucy (who he hasn’t seen in three months) manages to track him down with some sobering news…she’s pregnant. With his karma closing in to nail him on several fronts, he has to decide which “life” he wants to pursue.
There are really two films here, awkwardly fighting for the lead, as it were. There’s the cutesy rom-com aspect of Bobby and Lucy’s push me-pull you relationship, and then there’s the gritty urban crime thriller (culminating in a “let’s con the audience” triple-cross gimmick that we’ve seen countless times before). With special care, these disparate narrative elements can gel nicely (Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight 
And if I ever lose my eyes…Perfect Sense
I have some better news regarding David Mackenzie’s post-apocalyptic drama, Perfect Sense, which tackles that age-old question: Can a chef and an epidemiologist find meaningful, lasting love in the wake of a pandemic that is insidiously and systematically robbing every human on Earth of their five senses? I don’t know about you, but I’ve lost count of all of the sleepless nights I’ve had contemplating that scenario…or is it just me?
Alright, fellow hypochondriacs, listen up. According to screenwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson, it starts like this: A spontaneous onset of deep melancholia and dark despair, followed by uncontrollable weeping; after which you come to realize that (sniff, sniff) you have completely lost your sense of smell. Then, days (maybe weeks, maybe months) later, a spontaneous onset of fearful paranoia, turning into the worst panic attack you could imagine. This is immediately followed by an insatiably ravenous hunger; you grab anything that’s handy and looks edible (from lipstick to pet rabbits) and stuff it in your mouth. Then, you realize you have lost your sense of taste. Then…well, you get the idea.
It appears that Patient Zero resides somewhere in Scotland. That’s what brings an epidemiologist (Eva Green) to a Glasgow lab to help analyze the data as more cases pop up. Fate and circumstance conspire to place her and a local chef (Ewan McGregor) together on the particular evening where they both suffer the initial emotional breakdown that signals the onset of the disease. As they have “taken leave” of their senses in tandem, they begin, naturally, to fall in love (there is lots of room for metaphor in this narrative).
Since this is a malady with a relatively leisurely incubation, people do have a certain (if indeterminate) amount of time to adjust to each progressive sensory deficit. Also (if you can make it over the hump of that suicidal despair part), it isn’t necessarily what one would call a “death sentence”. That’s what makes this a unique entry in an already overcrowded film genre. While there’s still an understandable sense of urgency to find a cure, the question is not so much “can the human race be saved?” but rather “can the human race make lemonade out of this lemon it’s been handed?” I suppose your chances for survival hinge on how you answer the old “half-empty or half-full” conundrum. In this context, I think the film has more in common with Children of a Lesser God
As far as any “takeaway” goes, there are likely to be as many interpretations as there are viewers of this film. I mean that in the most positive way; that’s the beauty of it. The director and the screenwriter do an admirable job of suggesting possible philosophical and socio-political reverberations that could result from such a scenario, without getting too heavy-handed. The film is strikingly photographed by DP Giles Nuttgens, who renders a steely-blue and slate look that recalls another moody post-apocalyptic piece from several years ago, Children of Men
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