10/28/08: Lip Service (2001)Ever since
Pulp Fiction, plenty of faded actors have taken to proclaiming that their latest direct-to-video schlock is really another indie film. That’s left a few indie films getting mistaken for direct-to-video schlock.
Lip Service couldn’t be more misleadingly generic. The box art—as seen above—promises yet another dopey erotic thriller with an outdated fashion sense. The (poorly edited) text on the back isn’t much better:
Allison Cole has the perfect life. Her boyfriend, Stuart, is a successful lawyer, she lives in a beautiful home, and has become rich creating her own stylish line of designer furniture. Life is good until, through bizarre set of circumstances, Kat, a sexy modern-day gypsy and former college roommate shows up and moves right in. Things go bad fast when Kat learns that Allison’s financial success has been achieved by selling copies of a chair designed by Kat back in college and given to Allison as a gift…From there, it’s perfectly normal to expect yet another rewrite of
Single White Female. It’s no surprise when the opening credits establish that Kat (Jami Gertz) and Allison (Sybil Temtchine) were extremely close roommates in their days at art school. Then we jump to the present day, when Allison is attending a memorial service for a dead former classmate. This is when we realized Lip Service could be our kind of film. We expected Jonathan Silverman in the predicable role of Allison’s boyfriend, but he’s really in a minor role as the token uncouth guy who’s goofing on all the good Leftist mourners.
Kat literally crashes the memorial service as one sensitive creep is preparing to read a poem by the deceased entitled “The Community That Lives In My Asshole.” We learn that nobody’s seen Kat since she dropped out of college during her senior year. She was the same drunken mess back then, too—at least, judging from that credit sequence. Allison is certainly surprised to see Kat. Despite a certain little secret, Allison decides to take in her dreadlocked old friend.
Her other pals aren’t so tolerant that they approve of this obviously bad decision. Kat soon gets to show the limits of her own tolerance once she stumbles into Allison’s showroom. Kat is initially touched that Allison saved the old chair. Then she’s less touched after learning Allison’s been cashing in on Kat’s old design.
Allison wants to write Kat a check. Instead, the stinky hippie suddenly decides that the chair really was a gift. “It’s an object,” says Kat. “It’s just a thing…I gave you the chair, and you gave it to the universe, so it’s good.”
Kat then oh-so-accidentally breaks a valuable vase. Allison is upset. Kat isn’t: “It’s just a thing, Allie.”
Allison feels guilty enough to invite Kat to stay with her. Kat immediately starts letting her boyfriend stay over. He’ll turn out to be a pontificating New Age drug dealer who starts working out of Allison’s home. There’ll also be a big fire at Allison’s shop. That’s right before Allison learns that Kat just screwed up a huge marketing deal by having sex with two Japanese businessmen. Throughout all this, Allison’s pals are trying to intervene—but, really, you can’t blame Allison for thinking they don’t have anything to contribute.
It’s great to watch Allison suffer through all this. She can’t stand the idea of seeming intolerant of Kat’s wild ways. There’s also lots of guilt. It’s inevitable that Kat will eventually seduce Allison’s boyfriend. We were watching
Lip Service in hopes that would eventually lead to bloody vengeance. Instead, the movie ends up as what the box copy describes as “an audaciously dark, stylish tale about the power of jealousy, revenge and friendship.”
That means
Lip Service becomes a horror film with a Cronenberg-style ending about assimilation and symbiotic lunacy. Maybe the closing scene was meant to seem quirky and cute to an indie audience. That would explain the Ani DiFranco songs on the soundtrack. As an erotic thriller, though,
Lip Service has a dark and disturbing ending—but that’s okay when there’s not a single likable character in a film.
Make it your own: There’s nothing special about
the DVD release, so you might as well get
a cheap VHS tape. We should also note that David Cronenberg is similarly invoked in our earlier entry for
Angels Hard As They Come. What can we say? The guy’s a master of horror.
