The best psychological drama I've seen in a long time. I can't even remember anything that comes close.
Filipe Manuel Neto
November 19, 2023
3
**Something abstract and disconnected, not worth seeing more than once in our life.**
This is one of those films that puts such a huge barrier between the audience and the screen that it seems like we're not even being taken into consideration by the producers. Despite the attempts, there is not a single sympathetic or palatable character, the script does not help and the feeling that hangs in the air is of a lack of connection and solidity in the final product that can only be explained if we think about the way the director wanted to be. abstract by force.
Everything takes place around a chic striptease club, Exotica, in Toronto. There is a dancer who enchants not only a client who goes to see her every day, but also the presenter, who is her ex-boyfriend and one of the most possessive and unhappy people we can imagine. Add to this an animal trafficker with problems admitting homosexuality who is forced to participate in a revenge plan, and we have a film that we probably won't want to see more than once.
Atom Egoyan gives us firm direction, but a much less secure and solid script. I like the way it addresses loss, trauma, the feeling of denial of reality and grief. However, to believe that a woman would set up an elegant strip club and her daughter would have the courage to take over the “family business” is to completely ignore the realities of these commercial establishments, where legality and illegality sometimes go hand in hand. A real luxury house would never hold private sessions on tables in the main room for a low price, but in separate rooms for a much higher price, and real strippers don't usually dance to the same music and use the same stage number constantly. There are also huge holes that the script never explains and that are left hanging. For example, why did Christina decide to become a stripper if it is clear, from the characters' words, that that is not the place she deserved to be.
Bruce Greenwood is the actor who deserves the most praise for his work here. He is the only one trying to break the ice and reach out to the public in some way, and that deserves an applause from us. Elias Koteas is not that good, but he also does work that can be considered positive. Mia Kirshner, on the other hand, seems to be disinterested and just trying to make some money without much effort. Don McKellar is no better, and Arsinée Khanjian has an absolutely ill-conceived and poorly made character.
On a technical level, it is an uninteresting film, to say the least. It is within the range of what one would expect to find in a film with aspirations to be commercial, but which seems to be more popular with festivals and film cycles than with the mass public. The positive highlight is the design of the strip club scene, something tropical I would say, and the soundtrack, which includes a good song by Leonard Cohen.
