Mark Reviews Movies: PRETENDERS

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 3, 2019

Shortly after our bland protagonist screens his student film for classmates, screenwriter Josh Boone cites François Truffaut's statement that one of his films should be judged exclusively on its sincerity. That's quite the loaded quote, and it's pretty apparent that Boone and director James Franco want us to look at Pretenders with a similar mindset.

That's a mistake, because there's little that's sincere about this story. It's about a film student's juvenile obsession with an actress, a love triangle that transforms into a square, a sudden turn into one character's fatal illness, and an extended final sequence that attempts to dissect the mysterious woman at the heart of this mess, only to shed even the thin elements of humanity that she possesses throughout the rest of the story.

Terry (Jack Kilmer) wants to make movies. While at a local repertory theater, Terry spots Catherine (Jane Levy) and is instantly smitten. Failing to talk to her in the moment and on the advice of photographer/new friend Phil (Shameik Moore), Terry constantly returns to the theater, waiting for her.

When they meet again months later, Terry says he wants Catherine to be in his movie, which he writes as an ode to his feelings for her. They end up kind of dating, until Catherine devises a way for Terry to catch her having sex with Phil. Years later, Terry is a jaded and despondent film critic, and Phil and Catherine are a couple.

A lot happens—most of it the back-and-forth nature of Catherine's feelings about these two men (Franco shoots the character in narrow focus, just so we know she can't be trusted). As suggested by the title, the characters are mostly trying to hide their true feelings (Phil pretends to be a womanizer, and Terry turns cruel by dating actress Victoria, played by Juno Temple), and they're pretty terrible at it. With Boone's clunky and on-the-nose dialogue (not helped by the fact that the actors, save for Temple, don't seem to know what to do with it), this perpetual descent into melodramatic turn after melodramatic turn is nearly insufferable.

Pretenders gets worse as it progresses, with a subplot about AIDS and a trip overseas to discover Catherine's origins. This is never about the characters, and by the end, it's definitely not about Catherine, who transforms from an enigmatic shell of male obsession to just a hollow shell.

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