So imagine my surprise to read a bitingly funny and coherent Sundance report/review on CHUD.
Josh Strawberry wrote:It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine.
I didn't see Cripsin Glover's first feature film "What Is It?" so I had nothing to base this sequel off. First, let me just say that I am glad I saw this film. I won't ever feel any burning desire to watch it again, nor any real compulsion to recommend it to anyone. But I am still glad I saw it. Maybe it's just because I can now say I saw a man with severe cerebral palsey getting a graphic blowjob then fucking a girl and finally strangling her to death. I've checked off a few things like that this past year. One of the others was seeing the video of the guy getting fucked by a horse. But I digress.
Everything Is Fine is about Paul. Paul has cerebral palsey. He has it bad. When he speaks, we the audience cannot understand one god damn word he is saying. But the people in the film can. There are also no subtitles so I really don't know what this guy said at all during the movie. The movie is difficult to endure, at times dragging heavily and assaulting the viewer with stunted acting and out of place overdubs. But it's an experience. One of those things you are sort of glad you saw even though you mostly couldn't stand it. Maybe that's the point, though. I felt the same about "Freddie Got Fingered" if that helps.
Paul likes girls with long hair. He decides to start trying the dating scene and meets up with various ladies. Most of them end up fucking him and then he kills them. This is pretty much your standard thriller movie about a psychopathic sex killer on the loose. Except he has a devastatingly crippling disability and it's shot in a very intentionally amateurish way. And the acting is horribly stunted and tough to sit through (again, probably intentionally). Oh yeah, and did I mention that there are no subtitles for Paul, the main character? Seriously, it's like watching a movie with Han Solo and Chewbacca debating the finer points of shuffleboard for ninety minutes.
Steven C Stewart plays Paul. He also wrote the film. So that right there eliminates any accusations of exploitation. According to the directors Crispin Glover and David Brothers, Stewart's original screenplay involved much more graphic sex and violence but they talked him down. The version they made is plenty graphic, however. We see Stewart fully nude and X-ratedly penetrating shockingly young looking girls more than once then brutally murdering them.
I think a lot of people would wonder why a man with cerebral palsey would want to put himself out there like that. The answer, say Brothers and Glover, is "Why shouldn't he? Why is he held to higher standards because he has a disability? Non-disabled people play roles like this all the time and are not chastised for misrepresenting all of the able bodied of the world." In that respect I agree. During the Q&A a woman with a disabled arm huffily asked Glover why he wanted to depict Stewart in such a negative and demeaning fashion. She continued to badger him about it and wanted him to explain himself. Glover repeatedly answered "I didn't write it. Steven did!" He didn't get flustered and really wanted everybody to know that this was Steven C Stewart's movie. He wrote it, he starred in it. Stewart could not attend the world premiere screening and speak for himself because he died a month after production wrapped from a collapsed lung. The directors said that Stewart "asked permission to die" in that he wanted to make sure all of the footage was good and they didn't need any reshoots. This added a bittersweet aspect to the night and the directors took time after almost every question to fondly remember Stewart and what a sweet guy he was. This was just a role. A dark fantasy acted out by a guy who has seen more bullshit thrown in his face than most. So why not let him fuck and kill some chicks on screen? And really, I think a lot of Hollywood actors are mentally retarded anyway so what's the big whoop with a CP guy playing a controversial role?
