Swingers

Swingers; comedy, USA, 1996; D: Doug Liman, S: Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn, Ron Livingston, Heather Graham

Mike moved from New York to Los Angeles in order to pursue his career as an actor, but he never forgot his ex-girlfriend Michelle. What's even worse, he hasn't found a new one in L.A. In order to save him from loneliness, his friend Trent invites him to a find a woman. In Las Vegas, they meet a waitress and her friend, but their date fails. Mike keeps bringing up that he misses Michelle, so Trent comforts him. Together with other friends, they enter various clubs, but no woman in interested in him. But then Mike meets Lorraine and he finally gets over Michelle.

Even though Hollywood dominates the US cinema, there is no doubt that its progress is enabled mostly through smaller, independent films, some of which are little jewels of originality. Among them is comedy "Swingers" by Doug Liman, that is fascinatingly unpretentious, casual, fresh and shrill. But beware! The first half an hour (with the exception of the unusual scene where the hero Mike talks with his telephone answering machine about love problems) is rather mild and too anecdotal, which is why many viewers at first will not understand what all the hype is about the film. The screenplay was obviously unfocused in the start, but later on brought in the charm, creating a fun comedy where the friendship between Mike and Trent stands out the most. Trent (brilliant Vince Vaughn) is the best and most amusing character. Holding on to his theory, whenever he meets a girl, he just lets her talk while only pretending to listen. When it becomes obvious that she is irritating, the music from "Jaws" shows up so he secretly tears up her phone number. In the end, he spots a woman with orange hair in a distance, who just keeps looking at him in a restaurant. And she even starts to smile and lisp him, and waving her fingers. He flirts with her, until he and Mike figure that she was actually looking at her baby all the time! Such a sympathetic scene of "flirt misunderstanding" was never filmed.

Grade:+++