My First Mister (2001)

terrible... so disappointed.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Jennifer Wilson (Leelee Sobieski) is a goth misfit and a loner at school. Her mother (Carol Kane) is divorced and remarried to Bob (Michael McKean). She doesn't get along with her father Benjamin (John Goodman). Technically, she's still a virgin and never had a boyfriend. She wants to make enough money to move out. She asks Randall Harris (Albert Brooks) for a job at his menwear store and he gives her the job as long as she gets rid of the hardware.I really like these two characters. They are both appealing and wonderfully lonely people. It's funny at times. It does get into trouble when first time director Christine Lahti tries to be edgy. The imaginary sequences are not good enough and it screams trying too hard. I would rather she direct this more straight. It works best simply with Brooks and Sobieski. The rest is more or less distracting.

Jill Franklyn wrote this coming-of-age comedy-drama which never gets the nimble balance between laughs and pathos quite right. Antisocial 17-year-old girl, into Goth attire, facial piercings, and suicide notes (and, in the completely off-putting first scene, smearing her own blood across her handwritten poetry), cleans herself up and gets a job in the stockroom of a local men's clothing store; there, she befriends her middle-aged boss, who doesn't have any friends either. Christine Lahti made her feature directorial debut here, and the scenario is littered with celebrity friends and (for the most part) a good-natured air. Some of the early visual jokes do not work at all, though Lahti is very adept at setting up intimate conversational moments. Her film would seem to share a common thread with the later "Lost in Translation", but--by focusing most of the attention on the ill-tempered, foul-mouthed teenager (Leelee Sobieski, dressed like a sewer rat)--interest in the central relationship takes an awfully long time to build. Albert Brooks is rather adorable in cardigan sweaters and a natty mustache, but Brooks does more for the movie than it does for him. By the halfway mark, the picture has sunk into a vat of mushy sentiment, clichés, and scenes lifted from other (better) movies and television shows. ** from ****

... so I can't really rate it. But I can say that the character J was pretty annoying. So she paints with blood and sits down on moving escalators and glares at the conformist sheep surrounding her in the mall. Was the "Comedy" part of this moving supposed to be laughing at her? If so, then yeah, it's pretty funny! Otherwise the movie is painfully dull, kind of like the knife J uses to cut herself.I will say that the friendship that arises between J and her boss is somewhat interesting. Nonetheless, I watched this movie on a Tivo and found myself wanting to fast forward not only through the commercials, but through the movie as well. I would recommend that only individuals with a very high tolerance for angsty, attention-seeking teenage characters watch this motion picture.

I loved 'Ghost World', a satire of suburban life a centred on a sexually assertive but socially alienated teenage girl who engages with a middle aged man. Christine Lahti's 'My First Mister' occupies similar territory, but is by contrast disappointing, with clumsy and unsubtle characterisation and comedy, paired with a heavy-handed score and soundtrack. It did make me laugh a few times, but the ending is obvious, drawn out and, and saccharine-sweet, as the film loses its previous spikiness in favour of a meaningless, conformist message, a quick weep and a feel-good glow. Furthermore, once she abandons the Goth look, the actress playing the teenage lead looks far too old for the part. Overall, this is a film much less challenging than at first it may seem.