Directed by: Kevin Smith
Premise: Zach and Miri (Seth Rogan and Elizabeth
Banks) a pair of platonic roommates find themselves down on their luck and at
risk of being evicted from their apartment. The two decide to make a
pornographic film together to sell and make money. In the process, sex, love,
and friendship get conflated in ways neither of them intended.
What Works: Zach and Miri Make a Porno is a
comedy that manages to be both hysterically funny and also very intelligent and
emotionally honest. The appeal of Kevin Smith’s films, beyond the immediate
satisfaction of the wit and colorful characters, has been Smith’s ability to
deal with the challenges of everyday grownup life, especially in regards to
sexuality and adult responsibilities. Zach and Miri puts these topics on
display unlike any other Smith film. The style of Zach and Miri is a
fusion of his last two pictures, the underrated Jersey
Girl and the overproduced Clerks
II. The technical quality and cinematic craft of the film is much better
than most of Smith’s other work but it does not go overboard either like the
major musical sequence in Clerks II. His characters in Zach and Miri are much more human and less
cartoonish than the pictures of the Jersey Chronicles, even those played by
adult stars Traci Lords and Katie Morgan, but at the same time Smith strikes a
balance of sentimentality with humor, hitting the dramatic notes with a little
more restraint than Jersey Girl. The film is very well cast, especially
Seth Rogan and Elizabeth Banks who manage to sell both the dramatic material and
the comedic material and transition easily between both. Zach and Miri is
an unapologetically adult comedy and recently audiences have been lucky to get a
number of these from filmmakers like Judd Apatow. This film has its share of
fecal humor but underneath that the film does get to some rather penetrating
issues regarding love, friendship, and sex and the complex relationship between
them and the relations between men and women.
What Doesn’t: The plot of Zach and Miri Make a
Porno has one glaring hole: the money issue that got the characters into
this situation in the first place is never resolved. It nags at the viewer and
is a pretty significant gap in the story. Ultimately the money is a McGuffin for
the real conflict in the story, the relationship between Zach and Miri. But even
the McGuffin should be resolved in some way and the film does not do that.
Bottom Line: Zach and Miri Make a Porno is one of Kevin Smith’s best films, probably his best since Dogma. Despite falling short in the ending, it does have something to say about its topic and has the right mix of comedy and drama.