'Full Frontal' barely a full movie

By Marshall Fine
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

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FULL FRONTAL (Rated R profanity, sexuality) Two and One-Half Stars (Fair-to-Good) Steven Soderbergh's film, about a group of people involved in making a movie, is an experiment in small-scale digital-video production that has its interesting moments but feels more like a sketch than a finished film. Starring Julia Roberts, Blair Underwood, David Hyde Pierce, Catherine Keener. Miramax Films, 101 minutes.

Shot principally on digital video in 18 days, "Full Frontal" is as experimental as Soderbergh's little-seen "Schizopolis." It is both a celebration of movies and a slap in the face to big-budget fare such as, well, Soderbergh's "Ocean's Eleven."Soderbergh has referred to this film as a sequel of sorts to "sex, lies & videotape," the movie that put him on the map 13 years ago. While it shares no characters as that film, it does resemble it in its director's willingness to allow characters to interact the way people actually do, rather than with movie dialogue. Coleman Hough's script has a natural, almost overheard quality, capturing people revealing themselves without meaning to, just by reacting to the people and events around them.

Made as a film within a film, "Full Frontal" initially seems to be about a reporter named Catherine (Julia Roberts), who has been assigned to profile rising film star Nicholas (Blair Underwood). Gradually, however, it becomes apparent that the lush opulence of their world is strictly cinematic: These are, in fact, characters in a movie called "Rendezvous," who are being played by Calvin (Underwood) and Francesca (Roberts) in a film that is Calvin's big break from TV work.

All of the scenes of "Rendezvous" are perfectly filmed and lit — and are a dire contrast to the rest of the movie, which is shot on grainy video. But the video camera (under the eye of cinematographer Peter Andrews) is much more nimble and investigative than the movie camera, capable of following the real-life characters in the film wherever they go, no matter how dimly lit.

When we aren't watching "Rendezvous," we're looking at the people behind the film: the writer, Carl (David Hyde Pierce), a low-key magazine writer who is married to an unhappy human resources executive, Lee (Catherine Keener); Lee's sister Linda (Mary McCormack), a hotel masseuse; Gus (David Duchovny), the producer of "Rendezvous"; and Arty (Enrico Colantoni), who is directing a play about Hitler (who is played by Nicky Katt) called "The Sound and the Fuhrer."

Each has his or her own problems they are trying to resolve in time to attend Gus' 40th birthday party. Lee, for example, is having an affair with Calvin, though Carl doesn't know it. Linda has just given Gus a massage (and been appalled at his request for sexual favors). Arty (who co-wrote the Hitler play with Carl) is having problems containing his star, whose acting method includes drinking blood to revitalize himself.

The most intriguing character is Lee, who is in the process of cutting personnel at her company and who is so unhappy in her life that she takes it out on the people she is firing. Keener launches a couple of wonderful rants, including one in which she suffers a case of road rage at all the people "whose cars are all wrong for them."Much of "Full Frontal" seems like sketches for a more thought-out movie; as articulate as Soderbergh's characters are, they don't have a lot to say or do. While Soderbergh wants to capture a certain reality, this is a case in which life outstrips art.

All of the actors are to be commended for being as natural as they are, but the combination of the script's flimsiness and Soderbergh's willingness to indulge the writer ultimately doom this film to the curiosity section. It's an interesting experiment, but "Full Frontal" is barely a movie.

Rated R (profanity, sexuality).