Roger Dodger

Plot synopsis:
At lunch with several marketing professionals Roger (Campbell Scott) expounds on the primal difference between men and women. His argument is that men have a place and that is to hunt and have women, and women are naturally designed to stay at home. Later that evening as he lets himself into the apartment of Joyce (Isabella Rossellini), his boss at work and partner in an undercover office romance, Joyce states that she wants to end their relationship. The next day Roger is further bruised by the fact that Joyce has invited the office to her apartment for a party and the company invitation excluded Roger. Roger realizes that his time as office pet has come to an end, and as he trucks back to his cubicle he finds his nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) in a standing meditative state. A senior in high school Nick says he has come to New York to interview at Columbia and would like to spend time with Roger getting a quick course on how to get a girlfriend. Roger takes him out on the town to give him lessons on how to start the relationship with women and eventually start dating. Roger sneaks Nick into a bar and puts him through some paces, first attracting the attention of Andrea (Elizabeth Berkley), an attractive woman. Soon Andrea summons her friend Sophie (Jennifer Beals) to make up a foursome, and they are immediately attracted to Nick because of his openness and unassuming manner and the fact that he has none of the jaded attitude that Roger has. From Rogers point of view Nick doesnt have the temperament for true urban womanizing. As the night wears on Roger castigates Nick for his inability to close the deal and make love to a woman and successfully give up his virginity, and decides to crash Joyces party. Roger gives Nick some instruction and even manages to set up an opportunity with an office associate Donna (Mina Badie) but Nicks conscience prevents him from reverting to Rogers tactics to make love to the inebriated young woman. But the appearance at the party leads to a scene in which Roger makes it very public what has happened to his relationship with Joyce, and manages to get himself fired in the process. As they move back into the night Roger tells Nick that there is always a fail-safe method to getting a woman, and that is to visit a brothel. At the underground location Roger cannot let Nick lose his virginity in such an emotionally barren atmosphere, and drags him back to his apartment to sleep things off. Roger has failed to introduce to the mysteries of the world, but has perhaps, gained a glimmer of a conscience. Nick travels back to his mother but Roger shows up unexpectedly to tutor Nick and his classmates on their home turf, bonding with the younger man in a more potent way, in an atmosphere populated by pre-adolescent peers.

Tags: psychedelic, philosophical

Review:
When Nick, his naïve, inexperienced 16-year old nephew comes to town, Roger decides to train the boy in the fine art of manipulation and seduction, taking him out for a night on the town that the youngster will not soon forget.As conceived by first time writer/director Dylan Kidd, `Roger Dodger' is less a full-fledged narrative and more a series of extended conversations.
Isabella Rossellini, Elizabeth Berkley and Jennifer Beals also turn in outstanding performances as the various ladies who play a part in the two men's adventure.In his debut film, Kidd shows himself to be in full control of his medium.
ROGER DODGER (2002) ***1/2  Campbell Scott, Jesse Eisenberg, Isabella Rosselini, Elizabeth Berkley,  Jennifer Beals.
Scott gives a remarkable performance as a silver-tongued misanthropic New York advertising copywriter facing a personal crises that only takes fuel to the fire when his teenage nephew Eisenberg (a nice thurst and parry polar opposite turn) comes to visit him to gain some insight to his lady killing' social skills which leads to a night of unveiling some inner demons via his fast-talking eviscerations and character assassinations in a furiously funny way.
Scott's bravura (and brave) take on a smart, verbose and insecure jerk straddles the fine line of being a complete monster and an honest to goodness dyed-in-the-wool cynic on the subject of the fairer sex (who are represented smartly by Rosselini as his on-the-skids lover/employer and Berkley and Beals as two young women the relatives hit on in an eye-opening lesson in the battle of the sexes and what it really means to be a man.
We get to see the real man then, and it's not funny what we see.The interplay with the nephew, Nick, beautifully played by Jesse Eisenberg, is the best acting of the year.
Yet as appalling and thoroughly unlikable as Roger is, he's played by Campbell Scott, who's so good that he makes Roger a person who is quite literally addicting to watch.After getting dumped by his boss, Joyce (Isabella Rossellini), the ultimate player Roger is more than a little peeved.
However, he has a breakup with his boss and lover (well, duh) Joyce (Isabella Rossellini), and his 16-year-old nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) shows up, saying that he was looking at colleges in the New York area and decided to give his favorite Uncle Roger a visit.
Roger talks a mile a minute, very suave like, and decides to take Nick out on the town in search of sex, which, he claims, is `everywhere'.A fine, inventive movie, with good acting by the leads.
This is a good introduction to Roger: lots of talk, but he can't back it up, and you can tell he has now idea what in the world he is actually saying.Scott won a few awards for his performance in Roger Dodger, which I can understand.
After a slew of film festival back-slapping (Tribeca, Spirit), writer/director Kidd had high expectations for P.S. Not to get ahead of myself, but after watching that disappointment I had to re-rent Rodger Doger and remember what I liked so much about his storytelling.Roger Dodger follows a "day-in-the-life" of young Nick (Eisenberg), who craves becoming a MAN by losing his virginity and looking to his uncle Roger (Scott) for guidance in the ways of manhood, women, and the social habits of Manhattan's single men and women.
Bitter because of a hard life, a crummy job, a boss and girlfriend who uses him more than he admits (played beautifully by Rossellini), the role of teacher-student changes as both Roger and Nick begin to discover more about their own hopes and realities after meeting two strangers (Beals and Berkeley) and a haunting scene in a New York brothel.This is the Kidd that's brilliant..
I liked the opening scene best, which was sharp and funny and drew Scott's character very nicely, but I felt the movie never had a clear idea of its own intentions and never knew where it was going, which is why it never really gets anywhere.Now, on the one hand I can understand not wanting to make the movie pat, not wanting to spell things out for the viewer, but I just felt not enough was done with Scott's obvious rage and self-destructive behavior.
Meanwhile, his sixteen years old nephew from Ohio Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) unexpectedly arrives in his office asking Roger to teach him how to seduce women.
Campbell Scott would garner the award for his intense portrayal as self-absorbed, skirt-chasing, pseudo-intellectual ad writer Roger Swanson in Dylan Kidd's "Roger Dodger."  First time director and script author Kidd encapsulated a real part of the Manhattan "Lust not Love" scene where emotionally impoverished guys pursue much more intelligent women.The film begins with a restaurant scene where through Socratic dialogue with friends, Roger quickly establishes that he has a fast tongue unsupported by a deep mind.
With no sense of what's appropriate Roger tries to hook Nick up with cocktail bar after-work gals looking for a date and when that fails, well, there's always the neighborhood brothel.Jennifer Beals as Sophie and Elizabeth Berkley as Andrea are two such women who are amused by but don't fall for a silly ploy by Roger to get them to spend time with him and the kid.
No "My Dinner with Andre," Roger plumbs the depths of sexual and relationship cliches and the other cast members respond in very real Manhattan (sometimes) babble of their own.Most of the story takes place at night so this is sort of a silly "Sex and the City" noir flick (one scene was shot in Lower Manhattan's notorious and still open for business Hellfire Club, a meeting ground for the S&M and B&D crowd).Low on budget and high on Manhattan's fast evening life, "Roger Dodger" is an Indie film that takes chances with a quirky story and pulls it off through the work of a cast that largely isn't in mainstream movies.The DVD comes with extra features.
Jesse Eisenberg's first ever major film, Roger Dodger, is a unique coming-of-age story with enough simplicity on the surface and enough complexity beneath it to take the form of an impressively entertaining study of the social interactions between men and women.
(No discredit to Jesse; if there's anything Roger Dodger does reinforce, it's the fact that he deserves every bit of success that he's achieved)."Sex is everywhere," Roger Swanson, played by the show-stealing Campbell Scott (Dying Young, Big Night), tells his socially lost, 16-year old nephew, Nick (Eisenberg).
Nick has traveled alone to New York City in the hopes of convincing his smooth-talking Uncle Roger into teaching him the ways of seduction so that he might end his romantic troubles by finally getting a girl and losing his virginity.
Free from Hollywood-ized n0nsense and feel-good drivel, the scenes between the two guys and the two women they engage at a bar are perhaps the film's best, showcasing not only Roger's subtle tricks and Nick's charming innocence, but also the natural chemistry between Scott and Eisenberg and the vulnerabilities they both carefully expose with their characters.The chaotic events of the night lead to an ending that, while it strays slightly from the tone of the rest of the movie and perhaps comes a bit too suddenly, is perfectly raw and unexpected.
Enter Dylan Kidd's writing and directing debut, the 2002 terrifically funny and memorable film Roger Dodger.Campbell Scott (The Spanish Prisoner) plays Roger Swanson, a fast talking, chain-smoking, ever drinking 30-something that believes he is truly God's gift to earthly women.
Roger dominates the dialogue and with rapid fire crass and the occasional sneer at those that joke at his revelations, we are introduced to a man who is on a conceited high that will eventually lead to his emotional crisis.Enter Roger's nephew, Nick (played by Jesse Eisenberg) who shows up from out of town and looks to Roger for help in the disposing of his virginity.
However, one is never lost or feels betrayed by the filmmakers because the dialogue remains so crisp and real.Campbell Scott won a best actor award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures for his role in Roger Dodger and in my opinion, he was overlooked for an Academy Award nomination for the same role.
The film was monotonously dark, making for little to catch the eye and distract from the lack of plot.The guy I went with thought it was a lot funnier than I did, so perhaps it was a "guy flick." I recommend this movie if you're in the mood for hearing a bunch of vaguely amusing recycled pick-up lines and party dialogue rattled off by semi-intelligent jerks.
Though you'd have a better time if you actually went to one of these snobbish parties and heard the same dialogue in person with the opportunity to talk back to the pricks.If you want an intelligent, funny coming-of-age comedy about a young man's experiences with older women, see "Tadpole." Even though it's shot on video, it's a lot more visually appealing than this clunker...
There are plenty of mini-synopses here, so I'll skip that part, and get directly onto the "viewers beware" section of this review.The acting is good, the sets were competent, and the direction was far better than the script deserved.The titular character, Roger, is intelligent, witty, and remarkably reprehensible - but then, guys who haunt the singles scene are.
Once he's actually talking with women, one begins to wonder how he's ever gotten through a night without wearing someone's drink - this level of casual, cheerful boorishness is remarkably rare and grating.I'd hoped that this would be a reasonably realistic look at the guys who view seduction as a sport - what it turned out to be was a caricature set up for the sole purpose of making the audience want to knock him down.If 'Fear Factor' and 'Jackass' are your favorite television shows, you may enjoy this.
"Roger Dodger" is a very clever and witty film with the memorable performances from Isabella Rossellini, Elizabeth Berkley, Jennifer Beals, and Jesse Eisenberg (as Roger's teen-aged nephew Nick who one day unexpectedly comes to NYC to pay his uncle a visit and to learn from him the fine art of seducing women).
The film belongs to Campbell Scott who gives a wonderful performance as a man that sure knows how to talk but who has a lot to learn on how to communicate and relate to somebody.
A good-looking New-Yorker, a latter-day Casanova, who can elaborate on the imminent obsolescence of male gender due to the accelerating diminution of its utility, during his working lunch with the presence of his co-workers and their boss Joyce (Rossellini), a woman significantly older than him and whom he has been seeing secretively for quite a long time, he is her "boy".But right in that night, Joyce unilaterally decides to sever their casual affair, Roger doesn't even have his say in it, but at least, the break-up sex is still on the table, so he takes it with a grudge.
Meanwhile, Roger thrills to play his utilitarian role as his wingman once he finds out Nick is a 16-year-old virgin andThe coaching session starts on the sidewalk, by talking, and the gist is that "sex is everywhere", here, the hand-held camera employment from the first-time director Dylan Kidd, a tactic has shown great pragmatism and advantage in its intrusive manner under dialogue-laden, interior- located contexts, causes a somehow fluid and distracting effect al fresco, which trivialises the conversation, however, once the pair plunges into the (retrospectively speaking) three-steps mission to make Nick score that night: hooking-up-ladies-in-the-bar, gatecrashing-a-party and ultimately, the "fail-safe" adventure in a seedy whorehouse, the film becomes unstoppable, accurately captures the nitty-gritty in the metropolitan dating sphere, deceitful, desperate and destructive.A Manichaean strategy to juxtapose an impressionable virgin with a cynical playboy works its way to be beneficial to both parties, Nick, seals his first kiss with an amiable, mature and attractive Sophie (Beals), and sees the vulnerability of a maudlin Donna (Badie), Roger's colleague in the party which Joyce organises and Roger is not invited, and sensibly chooses not to take advantage of her.
But Mr. Scott also excavates much deeper under Roger's vain front, he bespeaks a seething soul who has nothing in his grip, who is disheartened by superficiality of the man-woman interrelationship, and the fact that he is constantly under-appreciated for being outspoken about it, yes, that's THE inconvenient truth, if you don't play along with the rule, you are excluded.The film is also Jesse Eisenberg's screen debut, incredibly, his trademark tic of being self- conscious and out-of-the-place has already been honed up to a full blossom.
A condescending and annoying prick of a main character, pseudo-intellectual-and-insightful dialogues which actually make you cringe, and a camera-work so god-awful that you can't help thinking this movie was filmed by blind cripples who were holding a camera for the first time in their lives.But there's more to Roger Dodger than just an everlasting lust for sex and a race to get some.
And that's another beautiful side of this film: that while Nick's supposed to be the student and Roger the mentor, it's actually the Nick's ways we see as the proper ones.Still, the movie plays it nice to everybody, not trying to demonize one character and make the other look like a saint.
He and his boss, Joyce (Isabella Rossellini) are in a physical relationship that ends, just as soon as Roger's nephew Nick (played by Jesse Eisenberg) comes to town on a "find out your ideal profession day" for his high school.Nick knows Roger has a reputation for being a ladies man and asks him for advice on fishing for women.
and there could be excitement, however by the time the pace has picked up, we are mellowed and the film actually put several people to sleep who viewed it when I saw this.Campbell Scott was not terrible and I do look forward to seeing him as BATMAN in the upcoming film and I also thought Jesse Eisenberg did a fine job, however the film never came together.I hope that the director, Dylan Kidd comes up with something better for his next film, however I know it is being written with Jon Bon Jovi....
We had to wait a year for this movie in the UK, meaning we got Igby Goes Down first, another NY-set writer-director debut story of a disaffected teen going through the city with an Ice-cold adult mentor and a script drowning in sarcasm.This is where the similarity ends, as Nick Swanson simply wants to get laid as opposed to Igby's figuring out the meaning of life alongside the sex.
The end is hardly happy or redemptive; no sentimental reconciliation scenes here, again it's left to the audience's imagination, and Roger may also have changed by the ending, but his advice is merely toned down rather than showing women any consideration; there's nothing to say he wouldn't be telling the students everything we heard during the night in New York if they were a couple of years older.In short, excellent with a great music score, I'm glad I chose this over any of the two Bruckheimer films out this summer, and here's hoping it doesn't take another two years to see Dylan Kidd's next work..
This is one of those movies that won't shock you with their twist endings, intelligent plots, amazing special effects or outstanding acting, it's just a very enjoyable movie that will definitely make you laugh.Roger Swanson, after breaking up with his boss/lover, meets his nephew Nick, who is in town for some interviews and decided to come by his uncle's work place.
Eventually, he admits he's there because his mom described his uncle as a "lady's man" and that he needs his help in getting laid.The whole movie, is basically Roger's lessons for his 16 years old nephew, every detail is explained by him as rocket science, and this made this movie very funny.If you expect to see a lot of nudity or dumb comedy go rent American Pie, this movie is not like that, it just shows what our (men's) perspective is like, and the sad thing is...
But his macho erudition is undermined by the surprise entrance of his 16-year-old nephew, Nick, whose naive view of sex and kind treatment of women flies in the face of Roger's style.The choppy, hand-held outdoor scene in the beginning of the film is actually pretty annoying, and many indoor shots are shot too dark for my taste, but director/writer Dylan Kidd weaves a very interesting story supported by a variety of women who denigrate Roger while elevate his young nephew.
While watching this movie, you have this desire to escape the situation but can't help but to see what happens next.This is the story of Roger (Campbell Scott), an advertising writer with an incomparable wit and abundant ego.
However, after being dumped by his boss/lover Joyce (Isabella Rossellini) and a visit from his lovelorn nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), Roger's bachelor lifestyle turns into a nightmare.This is above all else, a conversation film.
The script, written by the debut director Dylan Kidd, flows along and breakneck speed delivering line after line of witty, hard-hitting and cynical dialog and the performances of these lines keep you enthralled with the film.Campbell Scott (Long Time Companion, Singles, Big Night) escapes from his usual charming characters and takes on the role of Roger with relish.
The jerky hand-held in-your-face filming was effective during the scenes where the characters were static and had to convey lots of dialogue - the opening scene in the restaurant, for example, and in the club when Roger and his nephew hook up with the two women.
Campbell Scott plays Roger, an ad copywriter, who thinks he is a ladies man but the truth is he doesn't know as much as he thinks and that is true when his boss, played by Isabella Rossellini, ends their affair.Of the blue, Roger's teenaged nephew, Nick, played by Jesse Eisenberg, shows up and wants his Uncle to help him lose his virginity.