Crashing (2007)

An example of mis-marketing just to make it seem more appealing to the popular audience, but completely misses the point of what makes "Crashing" so good. This is not a comedy about the sexual misadventures of a middle-aged man and two sexy co-eds. This is a funny, smart, well written film about writing.The art of writing, the love of writing, the craziness of writing, or the fantasies of writing are all that you can say this is about. A once successful writer is now mired in a personal downward spiral, but finds himself crashing on the couch of two sexy college students. They want him to guide them in their own writing, and he wants to use them to inspire him back to great writing. And here is where we get into semantics. Is he using them to get into their pants? Is he using them to steal their ideas? Or is he merely using the idea of them? And is that "using" them? Depending on how you view this film, he could be doing any or all of the above. Some of his actions are a little immoral, but he really is doing it all for the writing. Which we get a lot of advice on. It takes an awfully ambitious writer to write a movie about writing, and for the most part, I think they succeeded with "Crashing".A film which is primarily shot in one location with three actors, a lot of the action occurs in his head. But this is well enough written that that works. Because the sexual tension, that is real. And funny. And clever. And "over-intellectualized". Did I mention this was a film about writing by writers for writers?

A down-on-his-luck novelist, Richard McMurray(Campbell Scott, ROGER DODGER; THE SECRET LIVES OF DENTISTS)is kicked out of his house and needs a place to crash, and two young lovelies—college students who admire his work and want to be writers in their own right—offer him the coach in their apartment. Soon he's sleeping with both of them, and finds a muse for his new novel idea—they will furnish the details he needs, and Dick will become inspired by their daily activities, creating characters and scenarios based somewhat closely related to them. The ultimate male-fantasy of being middle-aged and having 20 year old sexpot admirers adoring you, wanting you to help them grow as authors, critiquing their stories in exchange for a roof over his head—and a little extra something-something, as well—is elaborated, while CRASHING also works as a satire on one man's resurgence creatively thanks to two girls who open that locked mental gate that needed a special key they had in their possession. The two girls are played by Izabella Miko (THE FORSAKEN) & Lizzy Caplan (THE HOUSE BUNNY) who fit the perfect profile of the kind of girls who would spark a zing and a zang in an older man needing desperately to recover from a creative quagmire which has his imagination muzzled. Caplan has a little more zest and snap than Miko(as Kristen) who is basic surface sensuality, her Jacqueline more unpredictable, egotistical, and empowered(Caplan's Jacqueline also has more of an writer's voice, and artistic language than her roommate and best friend). I still felt the three play off each other well, although I imagine the thought of two twenty-somethings rolling around in the bed and talking all sexy-sexy to a much older man might give some viewers the willies. I do think this is definitely a movie about the writing process, recovering what you lost, your creative energies jumpstarted thanks to unusual events such as sleeping on the couch of two college girls' apartment, ultimately revived by them.

Caution - heavy spoiler. I'm not entirely sure what happened in this movie but was engaged nonetheless. Scott plays 40-something blocked writer out on the street after his actress wife dumps him. When he speaks at old flame Kingston's class he mentions that he is temporarily homeless. That leads to a (real? imagined?) invitation from two girls in her class to stay with them on their couch. The girls - Miko and Caplan - both are interesting and have depth, as they use the opportunity to bounce their writing concepts off Scott and Scott uses the opportunity to peek into their lives and whatever. I'm not much into philosophy but I enjoy the way the movie gets into fairly basic philosophical issues dealing with life choices. Scott seems very familiar although I can't recall seeing him before. I think he's made for the role of the over-thinking writer and I would like to see him in something else. Of the girls Miko really impressed me, she should be good to go in future films. Very entertaining in its unique way, I would normally object to the wrap up (like I did vehemently with Fight Club), but given what went before I thought it actually worked here.

Geez it's been a while since I've written a review but I've been in a rut seeing action-prison-bad-guy-does-good genre flicks that usually end up boring me after 20 minutes. The last film that actually amused me was the latest Star Trek (2009). It's been a dry spell when it comes to movies that go beyond face value - I kid you not...Crashing (2007) had me interested from the starting credit music - a quirky, sparse little woodwind theme that would be repeated throughout the film.The film is about a the travails of a writer, Richard McMurray (Campbell Scott) stumbling over himself and the roadblock of first novel success. Comfortable, complacent and frustrated by eternally trying to repeat the formula of his first book.Richard's life gets ripped apart when his wife kicks him out of the house and freezes his bank accounts. At a creative writing presentation he tells of his writer's block and new sense of heady liberation due to circumstances beyond his control, and gets invited to crash at the apartment of a female student. And so Richard ends up sleeping on the couch of coeds Kristen and Jacqueline, provided that he critiques their own writing endeavors.Much credit to Izabella Miko and Lizzy Caplan, who nicely contrast each other as the muse twins of dark and light. I've been a fan of Campbell Scott since Roger Dodger (2002) and here he is just as amusingly self-deprecating.It's an engrossing movie that will pull you in as the author and two young girls intertwine in life and in fiction.