Sonny

Plot synopsis:
Sonny returns to New Orleans' French Quarter when he finishes his three-year hitch in the army. His mother, Jewel, is not only surprised since he didn't call ahead, but eager for Sonny to return to his former trade as a male prostitute serving older female clients. Jewel, a former prostitute herself, has a new girl, Carol, who's working out well, and Jewel just knows that if Carol and Sonny worked doubles, her son servicing the woman while Carol takes the man, they'd make big money.However, Sonny has other plans. His army friend Jesse has promised Sonny a job at his father's Texas bookstore. Sonny just needs some good clothes and a bit of traveling money. While trying on suits (and asking if there's a job opening), Sonny is interrupted by Meg, a former client who tells her friend Sonny is the one she's gushed about. It's clear she's still interested.Jewel's boyfriend Henry, a shoplifter and thief who barely makes enough to rent a room, buy a bottle, and pay his losses at his daily gin game with his friend, pours Sonny a drink. It's too late for him, Henry explains, but Sonny can still get out, do something with his life.Sonny and Carol soon sleep together. She is duly impressed with Sonny's skills as a lover, so much so that she not only pays him but loans him the car she's borrowed from Troy, a car-dealer client who asks Carol to marry him often. On arrival in Texas, Sonny is disappointed to learn there is no job. Jesse's father has died, leaving debts, and the bookstore has a new owner.Jesse has something for Sonny, though. His girlfriend has a sister Gretchen, a pretty blond. Why don't they go on a double date? Sonny isn't sure; he's been with lots of women but never had a date. Jesse convinces him to give it a chance. They pick the girls up at church, spend the day and the evening with them, and Sonny ends up having sex with Gretchen, who jokingly suggests that since Sonny's job disappeared, he should do that for a living.He tells her he used to. Gretchen fails at covering her appalled reaction. She gets up, ostensibly to use the bathroom, but Sonny finds her drinking cough syrup to get high. He loses his temper, throwing the bottle, which shatters, then tearing the bathroom apart, finding more, throwing them, shouting at her for being a junkie. Jesse is angry, and the girls yell at Sonny to get out.Sonny drives home. A business acquaintance who runs her own whorehouse refers Sonny to a client, and it's Meg, whose husband is out of town. Sonny performs to her complete satisfaction, but she doesn't have enough cash to pay his usual $200 fee. He accepts $150 and her promise to refer any friends who could use his services.Meg comes through, sending Sonny (in a hastily-borrowed police uniform Henry got for him) to the lavish home of an older woman with a cop fetish. Sonny is grossed out by what she asks that he do with his nightstick, but he needs the money. When she, too, attempts to deliberately underpay him, he throws a bottle into a large mirror, then destroys a television before she agrees to pay. In the car, Sonny is furious with himself and the life he's leading.Jewel has sent Carol to a nearby town to work for a week. Jewel needs her cut of the money; she worries a lot that she has nothing to show for a life of work, only what she can earn through her girls--and Sonny, who picks Carol up when the week ends. He's known the man running the operation for years, and asks what his father looked like after he shows Carol a hole in the lobby wall where his father defended his mother from a possessive pimp. The man says he cannot remember.Henry gives his last forty bucks to his gin-playing friend just before Jewel reminds him he needs to take her to Antoine's for her birthday. She sends him out to steal something. Dressed with outdated flash at the expensive restaurant, they are seated, and the evening seems very special. Jewel has slipped off her high heels, and the waiter insists she put them on. When she explains she always does this and it's not hurting anyone, he insults them both. Henry, who's already drained a glass of wine for liquid courage, threatens the waiter with a knife, demanding an apology, which is forthcoming. The discuss whether they should "tell him," but Henry insists they cannot.Sonny and Carol are now a couple. Jewel has finally worn Sonny down. He and Carol word a double, attending a party as a couple, then being last to leave so each can sexually service his or her client in private. Sonny finishes first and watches Carol finish up. They leave as the couple's kids come in.It's raining, and they go for a drive in the country, during which Carol wonders if they should both leave the life, maybe get married and try something else in a new place. Sonny refuses to walk in the rain with her, since he's wearing an expensive white suit, but she won't get back in the car. He finally parks and they walk until it starts to pour. They make a run for a barn where Carol tears up over a dog with young puppies.As a whore, she tells Sonny tearfully, she has no right to have a baby. She wants things to be different some day, to be like other people. His attempts to calm her upset her more, and culminates in her telling him Jewel never wanted him, he was an accident. Sonny doesn't want to hear it. He won't leave Jewel, who needs him. Carol says she's done, that she's going to accept Troy's next marriage proposal.Henry finally wins a gin game with his friend, and feels his luck is changing. It is. When he leaves, he pulls right in front of a truck and is killed in the accident. At home after the funeral, Jewel tells Sonny that Henry wasn't just a good man but his father, conceived in a short, special time when she was first selling herself and only to him.Sonny's furious that they kept this from him. He dumps the coffee table and storms out, getting rapidly drunk in a series of French Quarter bars until he's worked up the nerve to visit Acid Yellow, who runs a stable of male whores--who service men, not women. Acid Yellow isn't feeling well, and neither is the young man who usually services Mr. Penn, who's due any minute. Sonny offers to take the client; he's interested in some 'rough trade' because he has so much energy borne of anger.Mr. Penn is a submissive seeking to be punished, but Sonny unleashes his anger, punching him with fists and throttling him until Acid Yellow stops him, with the aid of the house bouncer, who beats Sonny.At home, Sonny examines Henry's few things, especially his beat-up hat. He is feeling sorry for himself when Carol arrives to pack up her things. She's marrying Troy and leaving. She makes it clear she'd rather go with Sonny, but he does not offer himself.She goes outside, taking the keys to the car she loaned him when they first met. Sonny follows her and sees that she's crying in the car. He fantasizes chasing the car, her getting out and running to him, a big clinch in the street--but turns to go back into the house, and his life as a whore, without doing it.

Tags: violence

Review:
The movie is a mix of piano music and prostitution, and it's just like Cage's acting -- hyper-real and over-the-top, classy and trashy at once.The movie is partially a series of differing acting styles -- Blethyn's comic exaggeration, Franco's sleepy mysteriousness, Stanton's quiet control, Cage's funhouse tricks.
But I think Cage deserves a certain amount of credit -- he doesn't scuzzify the material or romanticize it; he creates some interesting scenes (and handles most of the more potentially offensive ones with as close to grace as possible); he indulges all of his actors.
A scene like the one where Cage makes his appearance, seen through Sonny's drunken haze, works only because of the oddness of it; it feels stolen from other films because it's supposed to be there for the type of movie this is.
The film captured excellent and emotional performances by James Franco, Brenda Blethyn, Harry Dean Stanton and Mena Suvari.
Nicholas Cage, in his directorial debut, brings to life a script that fits well with his 'outside the box' body of work.
Even if you consider the fact that Nicholas Cage first read the script many years ago, intending to play the part of Sonny, it is unbelievable that this film went from 'green light' to 'in the can' in 9 weeks..
Not knowing what to expect going into this film I was thrilled to find a brilliantly acted, enthralling story unfold before my eyes.My hat is off to James Franco who did an amazing job of portraying an emotionally conflicted young man in a performance that reminds me a great deal of a young Brando or Montgomery Clift.
What struck me the most about this film was the evidence of creative freedom that can only come from a director who truly understands the vulnerability and sacred space that an actor must work in."Sonny" is a film that gives me hope that all is not lost in "Hollywood".
I really enjoyed the slightly unusual dimension brought to the film by Nicholas Cages's direction, showing the same characteristics as many of the films in which he has a leading role.
James Franco was an excellent choice as Sonny portraying the on the surface shy but extremely confident individual with great believability..
Jewel wants to keep Sonny with her, and have him work as a team with Carol.Somehow, 26-year-old James Franco is able to tap into a wellspring of emotional depth to show the anguish attendant in the decision Sonny tries to make and honor.
i am a film student and i make it a point to stay up till 330 a.m just to watch movies like this.
i honestly think that if you want to see a good undiscovered movie that wont win awards, but can be picked apart for joy and scrutiny then this will do it.
overall acting is very well, and the story has a few plot holes but if you watch the direction the director wants you to then it makes up for it.
Sonny is a brilliant story of a young man who desperately wants to leave his past behind and begin a new life.
So, it was after 1:00am when I flipped it on, thinking I had found something to help me go to sleep, but once I started listening to it and getting the movie plot down for what it really was, I was shocked, then very interested in what would come of the characters.
Everything bad about this movie was directly caused by one of the most awful directing by Nicolas Cage.
He directs the actors to overact too often (as Cage does way too often himself)and it makes those scenes ridiculous when they should/could have been poignant instead.
Obviously Cage had no clue what he was doing, unlike his talented uncle and cousin, and should stick to his annoying over-acting roles.Franco is a stud but Cage took so much out what this movie could have been that even Franco's performance gets buried in Cage's mess.
I bet the talented 3 lead actors are embarrassed when they watch their performances in this movie but they can blame Cage who had them act in the same way he does.
And that is definitely NOT a good thing...OH one thing that is also awful and is apparently not Cage's fault: the script.I still gave this movie a generous 3/10, but one of those marks is for Franco acting (when not too Cage-d) and the other one is cuz we got to see his body and ass a lot, which is pretty much the only thing that kept me watching.
The actress that plays the main character Sonny's mother became so annoying and her phony accent is so grating you are tempted to turn off the movie half way through.
It is painful, you see Sonny and the other character played by Mena Suvari trying desperately to change but finding it so hard to do so.
overall a good movie, James Franco is excellent.
Harry Dean Stanton is a favorite, even Scott Caan is pretty good, although, as another user pointed out, I would never, ever believe that he ever read Camus, and that scene didn't fit with the rest of the character..
European audiences are used to slower pace and darker subject-matters, so this pic would undoubtedly be more appreciated in the Continent than it has been in the US...I was fortunate enough to watch it on an import Region-1 DVD, and was struck by the non-judgmental approach and sensitivity of the director & cast dealing with such a rough story line.This movie is great.
And the ending is a big pay-off, kudos to Mr. Cage for considering us smart enough to figure it out as we please.All in all, a bold directorial debut, in line with the bold acting choices of the director.
Maybe Nic Cage conducted a seance and summoned up the ghost of Mr. Williams, cause this stinks like one of his lesser efforts, all the way.I believe James Franco has something good to offer the world of cinema but half the time you cannot hear a word he's saying.
Most likely to overcompensate, Brenda Blethyn overplays her role as his Mother/pimp, and while she has her moments, they are few and far between.Mena Suvari gives the best performance, though I didn't really understand any of the relationships in the movie.
Suvari and Franco get too dramatic too quickly and have some puerile dialogue, some of it in the rain..its too much to bear.It was nice to see Brenda Vaccaro as one of Sonny's 'customers' but it hardly was enough to save the movie.
"I was fortunate enough to watch it on an import Region-1 DVD, and was struck by the non-judgmental approach and sensitivity of the director & cast dealing with such a rough story line."------I can explain this; I knew the writer of this film many years ago.
i thought that Sonny was a very good movie.
I wasn't expecting much whenever I rented the movie- i only rented it because i love James Franco.
but the movie really did surprise and impress me.I loved James Franco in this.
This is a movie that i would definitely recommend seeing, it has great actors, a good story line, and who can say no to seeing James almost naked body?
I think what I loved most about the movie was watching Mena Suvari and James Franco, they are so easy on the eyes, very beautiful, I love those actors!!!
A lot of people were saying that it wasn't going to be good but we saw it anyways because we know that Nick Cage is a man of many talents and knew his film was gonna kick ass and it did!
You'd think as a director Nicolas Cage, a member of the Coppola clan, would be better equipped to handle the ins-and-outs of a straightforward character driven drama, that he'd not let things get too self-indulgent or weighed down byunnecessary, heavy-handed exposition.
'Sonny,' Mr. Cage's directorial debut, is about the eponymous 26-year-oldformer male prostitute (played with sensual swagger by James Franco) whofalls back into his old ways when he returns from a three-year stint in the army to the home of his New Orleans madam mother (an exhausting Brenda Blethyn)and her new hooker Carol (Mena Suvari, doing her best in a sorely underwritten role).
Mena's is wispy and under-played and James Franco's doesn't have half the impact it should.In short, without spoiling the plot, I expected far more from Nicolas Cage and from the actors.Poor effort from a story that had the potential to be interesting, emotional and gripping..
I was so excited to see Nic Cage making a directorial debut and even more so to learn that James Franco was taking the lead.
I appreciate Cage's love of New Orleans and can get down with the atmosphere of the story, but unless you have to watch this at gunpoint, I wouldn't waste your time.
Is Nicolas Cage's SONNY the 'worst' dramatic film of 2002 or maybe worst EVER???.
Even a well-known cast of respected actors can't bring this ill-conceived project by actor turned director Nicolas Cage ("Adaptation") to either a dramatic or sexual 'climax' for that matter.It's a shame that a major actor like Cage who's had the opportunity to work with almost every great director in Hollywood could have gleaned so little info about the craft of film-making.The only thing I can say in Cage's defense is that he did hire a competent crew and he shot on film and not digital video (as opposed to real worst movie of 2002 - "Chelsea Walls" - the digital disaster by fellow first-time actor-director Ethan Hawke).Therefore, Cage's film really isn't the worst of the year since it is at the very least - 'technically' competent, but all other creative aspects are amateurish at best.
Mr. Cage directs a killer film here, pulling great performances from everyone.The story is dark but captivating and I just don't understand why this film is being so overlooked.
I would highly recommend it.Warning, the subject manner might be a bit much for conservative people so church goers be warned but this film really showcases Mr. Cage as just not an actor but also a great filmmaker.
He directed a great film here and should be honored for it.James Franco and the rest of the cast desire to be honored too!.
Amazing actor in movies by other people, Nick Cage shames his good name in this directorial mess that has good actors doing bad things.
Sonny is one of those small great films that makes me recover my faith on the seventh art.Nicholas Cage give us a film full of pain, rage, passion, love and with a little option to the hope.a portrait of the suffering that produces a clear lack of hope.The leading role lies on the great James Franco(the best actor of his generation) he plays to the haunted and dreamer Sonny.He is supported by great actors as Harry Dean Stanton,Mena Suvari, Seymour Cassel, Brenda Blethyn and Scott Cann( son of the legendary James Cann).This film gives a lot for very little and that is the best thing that can happen to a movie lover.
I like Nicolas Cage as an actor and I give him more credit than most people and critics do.
His looks are good for the type of characters he always plays but he in my opinion should stick to acting, rather than directing movies, or he should at least next time pick a more interesting script.The movie tries hard and its intentions are all good but the movie just isn't quite 'it'.
It's obvious that Cage wanted to make the movie and its feel more 'European' than 'Hollywood', but he should just leave 'European' movie making to Europeans next time.The main character is such an unpredictable and aggressive one that it's also hard to sympathize for him at moments, as is the case with almost every other character in the movie.The actors all mostly did a good job.
Suffice it to say "Sonny" is a shallow, shabby, and sorely lacking film with characters who wander within their own superficiality, missed opportunities for New Orleans noir atmospherics, clumsy effects which seem like brain farts, dramatic moments incongruous with story, etc., etc.
SONNY (2002) ** James Franco, Brenda Blethyn, Mena Suvari, Harry Dean Stanton, Brenda Vaccaro, Seymour Cassel, Scott Caan, Josie Davis, Nicolas Cage.
Cage, making his directorial debut, does what he can with the listless melodramatic material by John Carlen that has elements of Tennessee Williams on its fringes and smartly lets Franco  the best thing about this otherwise unremarkable film  do all the heavy lifting and emoting up a storm..
Nicolas Cage directed, "Sonny" is a title to be remembered as a past time to the Ryan Gosling "esk" movies of yesterday.
He never directed before or since, and it's a project that speaks somewhat to what we know about his influences - James Franco, channeling, I think, James Dean, who was Cage's reason to become an actor - and, I suppose, to his wanting to tell this particular story of a gigolo in New Orleans circa 1981.
But it also has life and some weird energy about it that's hard to shake off.Cage certainly casts with some interest, and more or less he's a good actor's director.
He also seeks advice from a boyfriend of his mothers, Harry Dean Stanton, and his mother's current protégé prostitute played by Mena Suvari.Cage manages to get some really affecting scenes with his characters.
A couple of short scenes between Stanton and Franco fare much better.And other times Cage is just trying things out as a director, and sometimes things work and sometimes not.
And when it comes time for Sonny to really be low in the dumps following the death of a character, as he wanders drunk and meets a gay drug-fueled pimp (played by Cage himself, Acid Yellow, a particularly strange and unerring figure to come at this point in the film), it's met with some mixed results as Franco is good but everything else seems forced or fake.
But, again, usually with his actors he gets good work, and a feeling of a 1950's existential crisis comes out of the material that works for Franco to play up (frankly he might even be better than Dean in some cases, perhaps slightly channeling young Cage to boot), and the ending of the film is a very nice twist.It's not something to rush out to rent or buy, and I'm sure only die-hard Cage enthusiasts or fans of the actors will really seek it out (any die-hard fans of Blethyn out there?).
Story takes place in New Orleans in 1981 where Sonny Phillips (James Franco) has just been discharged from the Army with the hopes of finding a job someplace but his mother wants him to come back to what she taught him.
He becomes very jaded and remorseful and when Carol suggests that they go off together and start a new life he can't even bring himself to admit that it's possible for such a thing to happen.This film marks the directorial debut of actor Nicolas Cage and while he does show that he can tell a story at a good pace the main flaw comes from the script itself.
This story is very reminiscent of the ambiguous neo-realism films from Italy and France of the 50's and 60's in which the script just allows us to watch Sonny slowly become angry and bitter and to allow prostitution to inevitably become his unfortunate life.
Critics point out that the film doesn't offer any insight to Sonny and instead we see the usual clichés and one can't deny that those flaws are evident but there are some good things that should be noticed in Cage's direction.
One is the solid performances he gets by all of his actors and I think Blethyn's Southern accent isn't to bad but I think Suvari gives arguably the most effective performance in the film.
This isn't a bad film and Cage seems to have some talent as a director but this is still a script that fails to be revealing..
The film was strangely truncated- big parts of how the Suvari and Franco characters formed their relationship doesn't show up on screen, so the 'love' story that forms the spine of the story doesn't really have any resonance for the audience.
I think Cage let his actors have a little too much reign in their choices, but it may be the fault of the script for not fleshing out the relationships.
Also, the scene where he flips out on the trick for not paying him his full amount was excellent.I can understand why some people disliked Sonny though; there is not a lot of action in the film but much more focus on the characters' personal traits and lives.
Sonny is a great movie, especially if you like to watch movies that focus more on interactions between people rather than action..
A Nicolas Cage movie, directed and produced, SONNY is stark, raw and straight-to-the-point.
Working for Jewel is a pretty young girl named Carol(Mena Suvari)that deep inside wants to leave the business and live like the "normal" people that marry and have a home with children.
It's a Nicholas Cage (and to a different degree, James Franco) trademark.Another surprise: Brenda Vaccaro as Meg. Though her role is brief, her chops as an actress really stood out.
But for me that didn't take away from her wonderful acting a bit.First time seeing Mena Suvari...I don't know how she usually acts but thought she nailed her role as "pretty baby".
I have never seen anyone tap into that particular space and so completely nail it in film before, but I recognized it very well.Cage allowed Sonny to care for his clients and want to please them, though he clearly didn't enjoy every aspect of his work.