You Don't Nomi

[StevePulaski]

You Don't Nomi (2020)
Directed by: Jeffrey McHale

Stage performer April Kidwell channels her inner Nomi Malone from Showgirls, which is given extensive examination in You Don't Nomi.

Rating: ★★★

There's something stylistically ambitious about a documentary on a particular film that is presented as a collage of clips from that film as well as various snippets of other works. You Don't Nomi inspires intrigue on that aspect alone, although I did sometimes wish to see the various speakers and give a face to the analysis. Apparently, it's similar to the well-regarded Shining documentary Room 237 (unseen by me) in its approach, and perhaps when a single film is up for examination, that's the appropriate route to go.

You might be asking: is a full-length documentary on Paul Verhoeven's controversial yet everlasting Showgirls necessary? My response to that is "absolutely." Few films have undergone intense critical reevaluation, let alone have a distinction as unique as "the most expensive NC-17-rated film ever made." But beyond the elephant-in-the-room that is the film's rating or its explicit sexual content, it is a strange production to discuss. On one hand, there are many moments of over-the-top acting and broadly drawn characters that negate some of the deeper human interest elements in the film. On the other, however, it's a rousing spectacle that incorporates gaudy theatrical setpieces, alluring cinematography, and motifs that contextualize it as...maybe a deceptively thoughtful, deeper picture than we assumed?

Verhoeven's initially reviled 1995 drama features a number of commentators that pick apart scenes and ideas from the film over the course of 94 entertaining minutes. One of the best voices is David Schmader, who has become known as something of a Showgirls enthusiast, traveling the United States hosting "annotated screenings" of the film, and even loaning his voice to the special edition DVD commentary track (the box-set of that release even came with stripper pasties, some might recall!). Other voices are folks who even produced literature on the film, such as Adam Nayman, author of It Doesn’t Suck: Showgirls, and poet Jeffery Conway, who compiled a collection of sestinas with Verhoeven's film as the overarching inspiration. Director Jeffrey McHale doesn't hesitate to include voices critical of the film either, including Barbara Shulgasser-Parker, who originally felt the film was "drearily pedestrian" and still does in the present. As someone who loves the film, I found some of the scathing analysis to be most compelling.

When Showgirls was released in theaters in September 1995, Verhoeven and writer Joe Eszterhas were coming off the controversial-yet-massively-successful erotic thriller Basic Instinct, which was released in 1992. Showgirls was the first NC-17 film to obtain a wide release, and it also came roughly eight years after Verhoeven made his American debut with RoboCop after leaving his homeland of the Netherlands in order to pursue grittier projects. Furthermore, the film was Saved by the Bell star Elizabeth Berkley's first marquee role on the silver-screen, a dramatic curve-ball from Berkley, whose character on the popular sitcom, Jessie Spano, was a powerful liberal feminist.

Schmader, Nayman, and company comment on the film's stylistic approach and recurring motifs, which range from potato chips to fingernails. You Don't Nomi is divided into three parts: "Piece of Shit," "Masterpiece," and "Masterpiece of Shit," all referring to the subjectively interpreted phases the film has gone through in context of its evaluation. Some commentators compare the film's enduring appeal to that of flicks Mommie Dearest and Valley of the Dolls, which have amassed large cult followings for their dramatic acting and soapy portrayal of the seedy underbelly of domesticity. Similarly, Berkley's performance has gone on to be looked at comparably to Faye Dunaway in the former and Patty Duke in the latter.

Berkley and her character of Nomi Malone has noticeably caught the affection of the queer community, which the documentary addresses in a well-developed excerpt and discerns the appeal in a way I hadn't previously considered. In Showgirls, Nomi's reinvention is looked at lovingly amongst the LGBTQIA community, as she leaves behind her regressive small-town and forges a brand new identity in the emotional hot-bed of Las Vegas. For Nomi, sex is the means to an end, and the family she cultivates, be it her coworkers at The Cheetah strip club or her confidant Molly Abrams (Gina Ravera), bears connective tissue to the way gay people long for acceptance if they're disregarded by their own family. It's the kind of analysis you crave if you're someone like me, who often gets fixated on a particular film and wants to swallow any and every kind of morsel of information I can find on it.

The film uses the entire catalog of Verhoeven to bolster their acclaim or heighten their criticisms, pulling clips from his Dutch films like The Fourth Man and Turkish Delight while too examining his American features, Starship Troopers and Total Recall to name a couple, to show how his wacky style has been the basis for social commentary for years. In regards to the response from the cast and crew when it comes to Showgirls, it's equally riveting how many different ways the folks behind it have simultaneously come to its defenses while doing their fair share of backpedaling. When the film was released, everyone from Verhoeven to Kyle MacLachlan stated the crew was committed to making a serious drama, with Verhoeven even going as far as to release a pretentious-looking coffee-table piece that meticulously dissects the picture. Then, when the negative reviews were printed en masse, many reverted course and claimed Showgirls was meant to be broad and satirical. After enough flip-flopping between castmembers to make you think they were politicians when discussing the project, it only stands to reason why a film like You Don't Nomi and its existence is justified. There needs to be some baseline for critical evaluation, and it's murky if you're trying to pinpoint Verhoeven, Berkley, or another castmember's opinions on the film in order to try and appropriately define it.

The third act takes a peek at the stage adaptation of Showgirls, which successfully ran off-Broadway for a number of years with its Room-esque approach to the ordinarily reticent space known as theater. The show was headlined by a spunky actress named April Kidwell, who thankfully gets a sizable amount of time to discuss her troubled upbringing, her violent sexual assault, and subsequent liberation after being cast as Nomi Malone. Kidwell even went on to play Berkley's Jessie Spano in a stage adaptation of the infamous Saved by the Bell episode "Jessie's Song," where Berkley's character is addicted to caffeine pills. The episode comes to a head when Jessie has a crying fit realizing she's been using the pills to mask her inherent nervousness in performing in the school talent show. If you've seen the episode, you know it's not at all poorly acted. At the end of the day, however, the addictive substance (originally supposed to be speed) is caffeine pills, which, last I checked, is one of the drugs that doesn't ordinarily lead to you losing everything from money to self-worth. Kidwell and her supporting cast heighten the campy premise and turn it into an effective stageplay, as they do with Showgirls.

You Don't Nomi packs in density with its analysis, and a diverse mix of voices to help contextualize and examine one of the most polarizing pictures of the last 30 years. If you still think a documentary on Showgirls is rather unnecessary, I regret to inform you another film — called Goddess: The Fall and Rise of Showgirls — is in development.

Directed by: Jeffrey McHale.