Two Girls and a Guy

Trailer—Two Girls and a Guy

This film is great. It manages to stay interesting even though it is shot essentially in real time and in just one scene. The dialogue is great and the acting is wonderful, particularly by Downey, who offers up one of the best performances of the year.

This movie is probably the worst film I've ever watched. The sleazy concept of Robert Downey, Jr. trying to juggle between two girlfriends is horrendous. The graphic scene that gave this film an NC-17 rating was unnecessary. This film is highly degrading to women because it tries to pass them off as submissive sex maniacs who want nothing but threesomes and sexual satisfaction. Aside from that, the entire movie takes place in Downey's apartment, so you get bored with the atmosphere. The acting is on the level of softcore porno acting, and the script was obviously not present during the filming.

When I first saw Two Girls and A Guy, I thought to myself that something was wrong. The storyline impressed me, but the feeling that I got was that it would flow much better in the theater. The script through the whole movie seemed much more like a play, and not a film at all. After I noticed this, I began to watch the movie as if it were on stage, and it made it so much more meaningful, and the acting performances much stronger. If Robert Downey Jr. performed this role on stage, the audience would walk away with something really special. He is what makes the viewer forget that they are watching a film. He is outstanding in this role.

After an intriguing start, this little drama quickly descends into the ranks of sheer mediocrity. The start of the movie sees two women (Heather Graham and Natasha Gregson Wagner) meet each other while waiting for their boyfriends to get home from their holidays. Natasha Gregson Wagner is a lovely looking actress, and she plays Louise; a cute girl whose beloved boyfriend is an all round entertainer; music, movies you name it, he does it. While she's telling the other girl, Carla (Heather Graham) all about her wonderful boyfriend, it soon becomes apparent that the similarities between their two male friends are too much.... and it's obvious that the two girls are dating the same guy. Oh Dear. Enter Robert Downey Jnr, the sleaze-bag that has two girlfriends while some poor guy somewhere has to go without one. Downey plays the sort of guy that the ladies like, but men find repulsively annoying; he is, basically, a mummy's boy. The worst kind too; on the phone ringing mother all the time, continually showering his girlfriends with ambitious (albeit empty) promises etc. It's enough to make a normal guy sick. The film knowingly rips off superior three-way love triangle films such as Jules et Jim. This film doesn't work though; mostly due to the fact that it's story is so unbelievable. Seriously, if two women had just found that they were dating the same guy...they wouldn't stick around to talk about it. Another reason why it falls down is that it's just so turgid. There's no end of possibilities for the outcome of the situation that this movie presents, especially with the claustrophobia of setting it all in a small apartment; but all the movie does is get lost in masses of dialogue; badly written and poorly delivered dialogue, that is. The film is also massively overacted; it just isn't believable that people would act like they do in this film after finding themselves in this situation. Robert Downey Jnr is one of the many things that is wasted in the film. With Natural Born Killers, he proved that he could give brilliantly entertaining performances, and that is something that this movie could do with. The two females aren't wasted because nobody expected anything from them anyway, but Downey could definitely have been better utilised. Overall? A waste of time. Don't bother, see Jules et Jim or Natural Born Killers instead. That's my advice.

I am being in no way facetious when I say that this movie was worse than any other movie ever made. Worse than "Batman & Robin". Worse than "Manos, Hands of Fate". Seriously, it's that bad. When people tell me that a movie is terrible I use the "Two Girls" scale to figure it out. If the movie is comparable to "Two Girls" then I won't watch it. If it's twice as good, maybe I'll watch it, but only to laugh at the retards who paid somebody to make it, because a movie twice as good as this one would still be a piece of garbage.

Convict/thespian Robert Downey, Jr. tops his frenzied role in "Natural Born Killers" with another manic Tasmanian Devil-style performance. It's the funniest of the year, an actor's nightmare (how far do you go when you can do whatever you want?), but also the quintessential Downey, Jr. persona. Heather Graham is my baby, she just doesn't know it yet. Just kidding--truth be told, she excels in the part of one of Downey Jr.'s girlfriends. Wagner nearly matches her in the role of the other. Toback's direction is stagey (what else can you do with one set?), but his writing is on fire. Sometimes, you snag bits of the actor's riffs and laugh at what you can get your hands on. At other times, you sit back and let it flow over you--this is high-speed Jack Kerouac, coupled with Whit Stillman's keen ear for American bourgeois speech patterns. Wagner and Graham test each other on Downey Jr.'s lovemaking speeches, tying a noose for him before he even arrives, later Downey Jr. verbally abuses and repairs himself in his bathroom mirror--highlights of a dynamite script. 1998 was the year for actors and actresses, and many notables (and a few unknowns) did landmark work: Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show", Jane Horrocks in "Little Voice", Warren Beatty in "Bulworth", John Travolta and Kathy Bates in "Primary Colors", Roberto Benigni in "Life is Beautiful", Bill Pullman in "Zero Effect", and Robert Downey Jr. in this one. James Toback, who also penned the wretched (and similarly themed) "The Pick-Up Artist" in '87, is back on track. With "Bugsy", "The Gambler" and this film on his record, I eagerly anticipate his next picture.

...which was good, but a little of nothing goes a long way. It had some potential, but everyone in the movie was so repellent (even though Downey was made to be the real bad guy) it was difficult to appreciate. The sex scene (which garnered the NC-17) was unbelievable; even laughter wouldn't be possible if someone went experienced the trauma that the characters went through. I think the whole point of it, despite so little of such, was to shock. I don't know. You decide.

I think all the performances were very good, although Downey's overshadows his two fellow actors. As I watched, I laughed a lot. When it ended my first impression was that it is a very clever lightweight comedy. Since then, the film has made me think fairly deeply, a rare effect indeed from any film. To date it poses two questions to me: 1-can a man/woman love two people at once (or is s/he a simple philanderer)? 2-is fidelity possible or desirable in the milieu of this film? A last question is whether self-destructiveness is inseparable from the talent of actors like Downey and Robin Williams and others? I have revised my first assessment of the film upward.

This movie, may have been the best to focus on the many talents of Robert Downey Jr. I'm not sure if the movie was a full script for this movie, or if a lot of it was ad lib. It all seemed so very natural. About 90% of the movie takes place in the living room of RDJ's, character's NY loft. I was never aware of RDJ's talent for singing, piano, and theatrical performances. There are a couple of graphic moments, but all in all, it's a GREAT movie. Anyone who loves RDj, should most definately give this one a chance. Even though I hate Heather Graham, with a passion, I am able to watch this movie, over and over.