Post by StevePulaski on May 7, 2017 15:42:12 GMT -5
Skin Deep (1989)
Directed by: Blake Edwards
Directed by: Blake Edwards
Rating: ★★★
NOTE: This film was recommended to me by Dennis Brian for "Steve Pulaski Sees It," a month where I watch twenty-five films requested by friends, fans, and readers.
I'll be the first one to admit there's not a lot to the story of Skin Deep that's original in the sense of comedy-dramas, nor is there anything here that will make most fans of the genre-approach see this as anything somebody like Woody Allen or Noah Baumbach could do and perhaps do better. The film was directed by Pink Panther creator Blake Edwards, and shares hallmarks of his most treasured films like Breakfast at Tiffany's in the way he handles some of the more irreverent moments with a pleasant spark of geniality.
But there's humor and dimension across the board to a simple story of a struggling author, whose writer's block is hampered by his crutches that comes in the form of gorgeous women and copious amounts of alcohol. Zach Hutton (John Ritter) goes through women like Kleenex, confiding in his local bartender following his mistress walking in on him cheating on her with her hairdresser.
All this time, Zach avoids writing his next piece, in addition to his ex-wife (Alyson Reed), and slogs through one emotional pitfall of a hook-up to the next. One of the most memorable is with a sweet but feisty woman named Amy (Chelsea Field), who Zach meets after having to go up one floor in the hotel he's staying at to try and calm a bickering couple. When the husband leaves, Zach comforts Amy the only way he knows how, but first, shutting the lights to slip on a glow-in-the-dark condom that provides for some surprising comic effect.
It's surprises like that which work to prevent Skin Deep from falling off a cliff of sitcom cliches and narrow-minded situational humor into something a bit more deceptive in a good way. John Ritter, an actor gone before he could get the mass-recognition he deserves, provides us with a formidable picture of a man still sympathetic despite all his womanizing and self-destructive habits. Despite his prolific hookups and ostensible love for putting himself in compromising situations, Ritter's Zach seems troubled by his own personal demons that prevent him from settling down and accepting "good enough" in his life.
Few actors could give the potentially unlikable Zach such a sympathetic edge, but Ritter finds the right amount of comedic chops in his acting blood to give the performance sizable heft in that department. Consider when a far-past-drunk Zach is socializing with Barney (Vincent Gardenia), the barkeep who serves as his only friend in life. The two wind up stumbling into a halfway coherent conversation about monogamy, which has Zach blurting out the questionably relevant phrase, "mice are certainly not monogamous. If they were, they'd be monoga-mice."
Light-hearted but fluffy inclusions of humor such as that, on top of Ritter's charismatic presence, assure that Skin Deep stays on a path of likability throughout most of its runtime. Even as he functions as a friendless, drunken buffoon trying to extract answers from his psychiatrist (Michael Kidd) and letting whatever creative juices he still has left wilt away into nothing, Edwards doesn't let him become the epitome of unlikable. If anyone can keep up the demeanor and positivity of a character that would ordinarily be so sullen, it's Ritter, who is effective and charming here.
Skin Deep is a comedy that derives a lot of its humor and dramatic resonance from repetition. The repetitious actions and behaviors of Zach are predictable as much as they are juvenile, but there all he knows how to do. He can't do much other than drink and screw, and these are two resorts that can break any writer that they can't successfully make. All the more commendable that Edwards' film doesn't fall into a pathetic assembly of manufactured and familiar situations is his ability to make moments big and small in Skin Deep so similar yet so germane and relevant to the overarching look at a man's continuous and imminent downfall thanks to the vices that are said to assist some writers (and effectively do).
Starring: John Ritter, Vincent Gardenia, Michael Kidd, Alyson Reed, and Chelsea Field. Directed by: Blake Edwards.