The name "Teeth" may ring a bell with you. The film has an audience laughing and squirming simultaneously at Sundance last year, where he received an award for his work fresh face, fearless star Jess Weixler.
But if not, and there is really no polite way of the sentence, so we will not throw there is a teenager who discovers that her vagina has teeth. Yes, she is a living example of the vagina dentata myth, a concept that the actor Mitchell Lichtenstein explores in writing and directing his first feature film.
Lichtenstein's film is a dark and funny tribute to 1950's sci-fi B-movies (NPP cooling towers profile behind the daughter of the nondescript tract house, which may have caused her deformation, are an amusing touch), but it is also a story of vengeance women. It's an interesting mix that will ultimately incomplete near the end, when Lichtenstein seems intent on upping the gross-out factor he had prepared from the start. (You see broken, um, parts.)
For some time, however, it is easy to get absorbed in the surreal suburban life Weixler's squeaky-clean Dawn, a beautiful, the point of high school who goes around speaking to groups about the importance of abstinence. It is part of an organization known as The Promise, and gives red plastic rings for children to wear as a reminder of their chastity. Even kissing is a no-no. But Lichtenstein never mocks her, and Weixler, whose blond good looks reminiscent of a young Heather Graham, discusses the nature with equal respect.
Dawn can be fiercely protective of his innocence, in reaction to an event that took place when she was a very young girl, something she does not even remember, but we see at the beginning of the film. His new half-brother, Brad, is trying to mess around him while the two were in a kiddie wading pool and became "hooked"; years later, Brad grown-up (John Hensley of "Nip / Tuck"), is tatted, pierced, Perpétuellement stoned and hates women. But he still wants to do with Dawn, and the fact that she is so afraid of burgeoning sexuality alone makes it more desirable.
As a teenager, even if ultimately his curiosity takes over, and it allows even look at a boy in the group of abstinence, the boy slightly Tobey (Hale Appleman). But when he tries to go too far with it while swimming at the lake one afternoon, he learned too late that he does not really. A visit to the gynecologist to
find out what's wrong with it also has disastrous consequences. (This is the funniest movie scenes, mainly because we all know what is coming and the doctor does not arrogant).
Finally, the "teeth" to bite off more than it can chew (sorry, could not resist), Dawn feels increasingly comfortable in his own skin and begins to seduce men who deserve their comeuppance. (His climatic moment, if you like, is far too exaggerated.) And a subplot involving his dying mother seems out of place in contrast to the comedy.
But it is easy to imagine "teeth" is gaining a cult following through indices midnight, it is the kind of movie you want to watch with friends, to laugh and cry and not have to think too hard, and then knows? Maybe go home and have a chance then.
"Teeth," a Roadside Attractions release, is rated R for sequences involving sexuality and disturbing violence, language and some drug use. Duration: 87 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
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