Zack and Miri Make a Porno is a parody of a chick flick. Despite its unquestionably bad manners, it is, at its core, a sweet and innocent tale of two people who discover love in the most profane of situations. However, to get at that core, don’t be surprised if you want to wash out the mouths of every last actor in the film with soap. Zack and Miri, while genuinely hilarious from start to finish, is as foul-mouthed and raunchy as anything you’ve ever seen this side of actual pornography.
Zack and Miri is a classic story of two people who are perfect for each other but just don’t realize it (think When Harry Met Sally). Like all Kevin Smith comedies (Clerks, Chasing Amy), this one is about a couple of working class stiffs cursed with Peter Pan syndrome. Zach (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) have been best friends since elementary school and now live together platonically. That is, if they even have a place to live. With their rent overdue, bills piling up and their utilities shut off in the middle of a freezing winter, Zach and Miri have to come up with a plan to make some money and they have to do it fast. That’s when Zach gets a crazy idea — what if he and Miri make…well, you’ve seen the title of the film. The two desperate friends decide to shoot a shockingly low rent sci-fi spoof titled Star Whores. But what starts off as strictly business between friends, morphs into something far more complicated…and more meaningful.
Church youth pastors are fond of warning teenagers of the dangers of premarital sex and the inexplicable yet palpable bond that is formed between two people who decide to share a human being’s most intimate act. If it weren’t for Zack and Miri’s blitzkrieg of profanity and nudity, this film would be tailor made for just such a discussion. Smith not only has a sweet, romantic side, he has the observational prowess of a conservative minister. Much of the film centers on whether or not the two best friends can bring themselves to have sex. Smith argues that sex creates a bond not easily or painlessly broken. Just going back to the way things used to be is an impossibility once you’ve swapped friendship for sex. Luckily for our protagonists, sex with each other is the epiphany that leads them to realize they were destined for each other all along.
Initially, the Motion Picture Association of America gave Zach and Miri an NC-17 rating. Smith later appealed and won an R. But rest assured, it is a hard R. This is the sort of film that would make director Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up) blush like a schoolgirl. You know those family friendly Web sites that count each and every instance of profanity in films? Their reviewers must have stumbled out of Zack and Miri with carpel tunnel. Zack and Miri’s screenplay is comprised of one vulgarity after another. In fact, there is so much foul language that you become desensitized to it after a while. While there is also plenty of nudity, what is said is far more explicit than what is shown.
Director Smith has stripped out his usual rambling monologues about religion and pop culture, converting his sentiments into shorter, pithier punch lines. He is less interested in showing off this time around than in making us laugh. His two, sugar-coated leads deserve the lion’s share of the credit. Seth Rogen, whom Smith pilfered from the Apatow factory, is the perfect teddy bear. Chubby geeks in search of hopelessly hot girls everywhere, take heart! You can’t loathe Rogen, even when he’s muttering the most shocking obscenities. Not that his co-star can’t give as good as she gets. Elizabeth Banks, who is currently on the theater screen next door as first lady Laura Bush in Oliver Stone’s W. is simply radiant, and the pair’s chemistry together is nothing short of luminous.
The eccentric supporting cast is comprised of Zack’s coffee-shop workmate turned producer and casting director, Delaney (Craig Robinson); Deacon (Jeff Anderson), who meets the requirements to be the cameraman because he once taped high school football games; Lester (Jason Mewes), who lives for sex; and Stacy and Bubbles (real life adult film stars Traci Lords and Katie Morgan, who could easily have a career as a comic actor should she ever give up adult films). The riotous Justin Long also pops up as a gay porn star in a relationship with Superman Returns’ Brandon Routh.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno is a fairly classic love story masquerading as something far racier. Wherever you settle on the film — as an endearing sexual farce or a gleefully earthy love story — the jokes come from places beyond left field, places you never saw coming, places you never even knew existed. While the second half of the film, mired as it is in all that sentimental stuff, slows down a bit, there is enough bawdy energy and rude oomph to carry the weight.
© Copyright 2008 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.
