Sundance. Good Dick.

"This is a Sundance movie like crazy," writes the Boston Globe's Wesley Morris. "Video store clerk (Jason Ritter) stalks weird antisocial chick (Marianna Palka) who comes in to rent porn. She has some severe intimacy issues, and the object of the movie - it's a comedy - is for the sexually dysfunctional, psychologically damaged woman to succumb to the weirdo who won't leave her alone."

Updated through 1/25.

"By it's ambiguous finish, Good Dick has turned into a missed opportunity by a filmmaker who displays plenty of technical promise," writes Steve Ramos at indieWIRE. "All one can do is tuck away the disappointment, celebrate the film's brief sparks of life, and anticipate what an emerging talent like Palka will do next."

Variety's Todd McCarthy finds it "an annoying example of self-therapy posing as art." It addresses "deep psychological issues that should have been addressed on a psychiatrist's couch instead of at the Sundance Lab, where the script was developed."

"Alternately compelling and dramatically limp, the film scores points for exploring unfamiliar territory but lacks the emotional depth to make some very strange behavior believable. Still, subject matter could make this a provocative date movie with the right handling," suggests James Greenberg in the Hollywood Reporter.

Updates, 1/21: "Not a single line or gesture has anything to do with the world in which real people live, outside of some observations about Polish culture that clearly come from Palka's personal experience," writes the AV Club's Noel Murray. "Good Dick mostly proves that TV actors make good indie-film hires, because they'll go along with whatever ridiculous horseshit a novice filmmaker concocts."

"I believe a brave distributor will come along and show this fine little film some love - despite its frequent proclivity for very frank and seriously explicit sex talk," writes Scott Weinberg at Cinematical. "Fortunately, the film comes from a very sincere and heartfelt place, which makes the few 'uncomfortable' moments perfectly acceptable... and frequently quite fascinating."

Update, 1/23: "Their courtship is more bizarre than funny, with Palka's nameless heroine tending toward the realistically damaged rather than the Sundance movie damaged, which would be where all deep-rooted psychological problems can be solved by a few realizations, a confrontation and a montage," writes Alison Willmore at the IFC Blog, where she adds, "(This is, until the end of the film, when that turns out to be exactly the case.)"

Update, 1/24: Besides Ballast, the "festival's other favorite American debut is Marianna Palka's exceptionally acrid, and exceptionally funny, romantic comedy Good Dick," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "Why does Ritter's cheerful movie-geek character put up with all this abuse, when he could probably find (in her words) 'a normal girl you could fuck like a punching bag whenever you want'? You know, it's a good question but one that never bothered me.... Good Dick is a dark, sweet and sophisticated confection that might find a surprisingly large audience."

Updates, 1/25: Online viewing tip. Salon's Andrew O'Hehir talks with Palka.

Sara Cardace talks with Ritter for New York's Vulture.

Posted by dwhudson at January 20, 2008 2:03 PM