Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) have been friends since school, and are now terminally broke roommates. As their utilities are turned off one by one, and they face the prospect of eviction, Zack hits on the idea of shooting a porn flick to get out of debt. They gather together a motley collection of actors and crew, and, letting no setback stand in their way, start making their movie. But the real question is not whether they will succeed, but whether they will come to terms with their feeling for each other.
In his review of the film Roger Ebert writes, “’I don’t know bleep about directing,’ Smith once confided to me. ‘But I’m a bleeping good writer.’” Smith is half-right. The direction here is very meat-and-potatoes, every shot serving little more than to get the actors decently framed. But I can’t agree with his self-estimation as a writer. There are some funny lines here, but many of the laughs are due to Smith’s stellar cast. Rogen does his usual shtick, but it’s still funny, thanks to his appealing naive/cynic vibe and befuddled stoner delivery. Justin Long shows up for a single scene, and walks off with the movie. None of his lines are particularly stellar, but his cameo is hysterical, all of it due to voice and body language. The man could make the yellow pages side-splitting. This is not to say that Smith’s script is that dry, but it veers between clumsy earnestness (I kept waiting for the punchline during the final emotional speeches, the clue that I wasn’t really supposed to take this hackneyed dialogue seriously, and it never came) and a potty mouth approach that clearly finds naughty words to be funny in and of themselves. You know, like we all did in grade five. David Mamet this is not. But when all is said and done, there’s the cast. Determined to save Smith from himself, they make the film a bizarrely endearing and sweet experience.
Video
Longtime Smith DP David Klein is working with a much richer palette here than the days of Clerks, and the transfer is up to what he’s aiming for. So the colours are rich, the contrasts strong, giving such scenes as the high school reunion a lush, expensive look. The flesh tones are excellent, which is a damn good thing, given the subject matter. Grain is not an issue. This is a great-looking package.
Audio
If anything, this is even more luxurious than the picture. Taking the aforementioned high school reunion as an example, the surround is both immersive and sensitive to context. The background music of the dance and the crowd sounds fill out the rear speakers, fade to give the dialogue prominence, but never disappear completely. The same principle holds for the rest of the film. Nicely done.
Special Features
Disc 1
Deleted Scenes: A whopping 43 of them. Must be some kind of record.
Trailers
Disc 2
Popcorn Porn: The Making of Zack and Miri: Far more than a typical making-of featurette, this is a 75-minute documentary, ranging from conception of project to premiere, and with plenty of amusing interviews along the way.
Moneyshots Webisodes: 48 minutes and 22 episodes of promotional, behind-the-scenes and improvised spots.
Comic-Con 2008: 23 minutes. A Q&A with Smith and the cast.
Outtakes, Ad-libs and Bloopers: 13 minutes of this.
Seth Vs. Justin: Battle for Improvisational Supremacy: 7:21 of Rogen and Long having fun with their conversation at the reunion. One of the funniest scenes in the film thus turns out to be even more due to these performers than I had at first thought.
Final Thoughts
An odd duck of a film, that becomes more innocent the more it tries to be rude and filthy. Fans of Smith’s should find themselves in some pretty familiar territory (oh look, people working in the service sector!), and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
