We open with a bit of duff narration from Dot who is a deaf mute. We wonder from the off if she really is because she’s doing the voiceover! She talks about being half a person when another is there and a third when two people are there. This lessons in fractions was reminiscent of Steve Martin discussing how time felt in ‘The Jerk’.
Dot is an orphan whose Mum died when she was seven, and her deaf father recently when he lost an argument with a truck. She moves in with the dysfunctional Deer family who are her Godparents. Their bitchy cheerleader daughter, Nina (A slightly too old Elisha Cuthbert), isn’t happy with the new resident and badmouths her in front of her parents, safe in the knowledge that she can’t hear.
The parents have their own issues with Mrs Soprano maintaining the drug habit she earned on ‘Nurse Jackie’ and the Dad being a bit too keen on his daughter. At school the Nina and her friend Michelle are the stereotypical high school bitches whilst Dot is left on her own. She does however catch the eye of troubled jock Connor, who fancies Dot more than Michelle who is frankly laying it on a plate for him.
In the background of this typical high school affair is the spectre of abuse as Dad visits Nina’s room most nights whilst Mum pretends that she can’t hear anything going on.
Obviously everyone has issues and is basically mental - who’s nuttiness will ratchet up first? Who’s for the chop and will Dot’s voice be heard?
I quite enjoyed this film although it wasn’t too substantial and made even less sense.
Nina is 17 and the frankly creepy Dad is well overdue a pounding and not in a good way. Nina plots his demise but gets her head turned by a new bag. There is also a subplot of her bitchy friend making lesbian advances towards her as they sleep over in baby doll nightdresses. Not sure what was being conveyed here but a rewatch is already in the plans!
Camilla Belle had a tough job as Dot as she wasn’t exactly engaging and she just smiled and looked blank a lot. I get that she had regressed into herself as a defence mechanism but I wasn’t buying her deaf mute routine. At no time in the last twenty years had she never stood on a nail or let out a yell when a late goal busted her coupon?
The high school romances, complete with the prom, were well worn paths, but I am a sucker for the popular kids being right cows. The troubled jock Connor was a bit of a pain and I don’t know why his seduction technique was to talk about how often he jerked off. Worked though!
The inevitable finale was signalled from way off and the big reveal was nothing of the kind. Still they all healed a bit (apart from Dad!) and learned that the quiet after the storm was the best bit.
All in all a decent, if uneven, effort that had some worthwhile ideas which weren’t fully realised.
The Tag Line : Tony’s wife asks if she’s fat 65%
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