Based on and adapted from the play of the same name by Neil LaBute, Some Girl(s) should remain on the stage, where the audience’s feeling of voyeurism is palatable and almost acceptable as they are let into each unassuming, more similar than not hotel room in which the lead protagonist, Man (Adam Broday – and seriously, confronts his ex flings and girlfriends in an attempt to, well, show how doggish the archetypal man can be. Unfortunately, the entire film is one of chauvinism.
Man, as he enters his thirties, has decided to settle down. He’s on his way to getting married. He is, of course, a successful fiction writer – something that exposes the fallaciousness of the entire film from the very beginning.
The premise of redemption itself isn’t a terrible one, but it’s clear from his first encounter with Sam (Jennifer Morrison) that Man’s m.o. is hardly noble. Putting a hollow heart on a shallow sleever, Man seems to only want justification that he could still score with his previous conquests. And, I’m not sure if we should be more disappointed in the diaphanousness of Man’s character or at how the women are written. As Sam, Morrison is characteristically strong, but her character is a shame. A wife with children, she seems nearly on the edge of sleeping with Man if only he would overtly invite her to take off her clothes.
I suppose in one sense, LaBute (who adapted his own play into the film’s screenplay) could be suggesting that romantic encounters are hardly fleeting. Regardless of whether we’re examining the man or woman, each tryst or romance stays with us and defines us in some way. For the man, or Man, the woman becomes a conquest and a source of pride. More so, the female reaction justifies Man as the influencer, some sort of acting agent who sent the woman’s life in a particular direction, regardless of his own.
For the woman, the man, or Man in this case, is a moment of regret, and one that none of them could contain. Oh the irony that he is now engaged and ready to be contained – despite the fact that he’s flying around the country in an attempt to escape by reliving his conquests. While he doesn’t bed his former loves, he gets to tempt them and leave them again all the same, something that – presumably – he will be able to do less easily.
But in another sense, Some Girl(s) is ill-equipped to go deeper than its shallow protagonist. Much of the film is based on the girls’ reactions, but none are truly powerful or believable. Emily Watson as Lindsay, the college professor that cheated on her similarly professor husband who also hired Man in the department, might be the strongest performance – if not the most convoluted, soap operaesque storyline, but even this ends on a whimper, as her revenge hardly hurts Man. It only really provides him with an additional escape from responsibility. In the end, he owns up to nothing. He merely perpetuates his own stereotype and chauvinistically shrouds his conquests with the belief that they made the mistake by letting him slip away.
The majority of them enter the room bitter, seethe a bit, and leave bitter; all the while, Man continues to move along.
