*
this review contains spoilers * as with most of her films , director amy heckerling 's latest , loser , seesaws between unpleasant and artificial , and is sometimes both at once .
when she tackles big issues , such as abortion in fast times at ridgemont high , it 's impossible to tell whether she 's being matter - of - fact or glib about them ( they carry an almost documentary starkness ) , but whatever the case , she continually refuses to comment politically .
such is the sitcom tendency of her work : to jeopardize the innocence of her characters and then hit the reset button .
this fear of drama soured me on fast times . . .
, look who 's talking , clueless , and now loser , in which ms .
heckerling also demonstrates , for the first time , zero affinity for the milieu
.
has anyone , for instance , ever met a girl in the stylistic vein of mena suvari 's dora ?
attired in black thrift , her eye shadow smeared to racoon chic and her bangy red hair barely contained by girlish clips , she accepts the label of goth , but no self - respecting goth girl ever admitted to digging , as dora does , those geriatric rockers everclear , nor willingly went anywhere with a six - pack - wielding fratboy stranger .
the mechanics of loser 's tired old introvert - boy - falls - for - extrovert - girl plot drive its protagonists into cultural non - specificity , so that they become even less than stereotypes .
they become walking wardrobes .
small - town transplant paul ( a strangely static jason biggs ) , our eponymous hero , always wears his woolly hunter 's cap with flaps covering the ears , and beneath it rests a parted moptop that could n't scream " shemp " ( the lame stooge )
wig louder .
he has three smug - looking roommates ( the one - dimensional trio is not supposed to be brothers , but they share similar facial features , including and especially mouths ) , and their fashion sense is incomprehensibly glam .
though they 're not overtly transvestites , heckerling seems to be equating flamboyance with villainy ;
how very cruising of her .
( the dormies conspire to evict paul and regularly molest women they have drugged .
dora ignorantly downs one of their date rape potions .
unfortunately , either heckerling or the studio is too cowardly to admit if she was subsequently violated . )
when paul rescues dora from said narcotic scare , he learns that she is dating their unctuous european lit professor edward alcott ( superb greg kinnear ) .
although paul 's already in love with dora by this point , as is bound to happen to losers when pretty girls address them by name , he gets altruistic and pretends the flowers he bought her are actually from alcott .
she 's thrilled , but nevertheless spends a few days at paul 's to recuperate ; the two bond over emergency kitten surgery and a broadway play ( " cabaret " ) , and just when paul 's got in his head that she 's starting to love him back in that non - friendly way , she decides to become alcott 's live - in girlfriend .
cue precious hommage to the graduate , shots of paul drifting around berkeley -- er . . .
( aside : simon & garfunkel 's " parsley , sage , rosemary & thyme " should never have been allowed in another motion picture . )
heckerling has a lot in common with nora " you 've got mail " ephron , the only other prominent chick directing comedies today , in that neither has any use for strong - willed women .
men continue to trod on dora until the bitter end ( in the final scene , she gives paul a big smooch after he blurts out his feelings in what amounts to a creepy ultimatum ) , and dora ultimately shrugs off being drugged against her will -- mere hours after paul hints to her that she was poisoned , she 's cheerily redecorating his apartment .
( heckerling is so laissez - faire about the issue in general that she reserves the comeuppance of the would - be rapists for jokey epilogue titles . )
goth veneer aside , there are an awful lot of girls out there who behave as erratically as dora , and enough angry young dude filmmakers to make movies about them .
heckerling misses her shot at having dora transform herself into a role model , and while such arcs may not be heckerling 's social responsibility , it is a privilege i would have taken advantage of if i were in her shoes .
( consider , too , that dora is the film 's sole female principal . )
not that loser is worth contemplating this seriously -- god knows heckerling did n't .
that is her hallmark .
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the mechanics of loser 's tired old introvert - boy - falls - for - extrovert - girl plot drive its protagonists into cultural non - specificity walking wardrobes demonstrates , for the first time , zero affinity for the milieu misses her shot