In a recent post, I discussed NYT columnist Maureen Dowd's musings about the beauty pressures on women. Sarah Marchildon, who blogs at The Hollywood North Report, left a comment, which led to one from me.

At one point, I recommended she watch Roger Dodger. Her is her response (taken from the comments of an unrelated post because ... why, exactly? Take it away, Sarah! :)  ):

Sorry...my comment here has nothing to do with the above posting. But I'm too lazy to scroll back to the original posting where you recommended the movie Roger Dodger.

Well, I rented it and all I can say is...um...Jesus Christ! What the hell was that?

I spent 106 minutes of my life watching an amoralistic, insensitive, immature, shallow, judgemental, problem drinking, chain smoking sexual predator corrupt his nephew.

If there was a point or message, it went flying over my head. Explain it for me! Please!

Was it ground-breaking because for once the asshole didn't get the girl? That romantic comedies glamourize assholes? And this one didn't?

Buddy made the Hugh Grant character in the Bridget Jones movie look like a teddy bear.

I didn't like the movie. I just didn't get the point. Dude, help a sister out here!

Well, right now I'm feeling a little like poor, befuddled Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) in the scene in Taxi Driver where he asks Betsy (Cybill Sheppard), "You don't like these kinds of movies?" :)

[If you've never seen Taxi Driver, Travis had taken Betsy to an adult movie house -- on their one and only date, surprise, surprise. :) ]

Anyways, on to Roger Dodger.

It's a 2002 movie that's essentially a sexual politics film set in New York.

Roger (Campbell Scott) is a New York ad copywriter who's sleeping with his boss Joyce (played to icy perfection by Isabella Rosellini).

Roger fancies himself a player, but he's more of a plaything for Joyce (note: I'm going from memory on the dialogue and plot; I haven't seen it for a while, and while I should be close, the quotes probably won't be exact. I've used rottentomatoes.com to reference some information)?

Double Note:  if you haven't seen it yet but might want to, I essentially give away the whole plot. You've been warned.

At one point, where he's obviously on the way out sexually with her and isn't happy about it, Joyce fixes him with a beautiful, mirthless smile and tells him while he's a very clever boy, she's got 50 people she could replace him with tomorrow.

You're left with the impression that for her, getting rid of Roger would be like stepping on a bug on the sidewalk.

Into this situation steps his sister's 16-year-old son Nick ( Jesse Eisenberg) from Ohio, in town to look at colleges. He's heard from mom that Uncle Roger is something of a ladies' man, and was hoping to get some help to elevate his sexual status to made man (so to speak).

Uncle Rog then tries to pass on what he's learned about women, and the two of them hit the town.

At a bar, Roger's silver-tongued devil routine manages to attract two prototypical, gorgeous, battle-hardened big-city women, played very well by Jennifer Beals (Sophie) and Elizabeth Berkeley (Andrea), to his and Nick's table.

Things get interesting when the four of them are sitting outside in some parkette. The women are obviously finding Jesse's earnestness and innocence more interesting than Roger's boilerplate cool guy routine -- and he knows it (at one point, I believe Andrea busses Nick's lips and says warmly, "There: Your first kiss.")

Roger's head explodes. He turns into a complete asshole, and the women leave.

To add to Roger's stress levels, before that happened, he had sniffed out that Joyce was having a party that night -- and that he was clearly not invited or welcome.

No matter -- he crashes, again behaves like a complete asshole and essentially leaves jobless after saying and doing some very injudicious things.

Back out on the streets of Manhattan, Nick asks him, "I thought said you got laid every night?" Roger replies unapologetically: "Yeah? Well, I say a lot of things."

Things turn figuratively and literally darker from there as Roger takes Nick to "the fail-safe" -- some squalid, dehumanizing commercial sex club.

The film finishes off back in Ohio, where a wistfully, partially chastened Roger tells his suburban-mom sister that he's got a few things to work out.

However, the film ends with him whispering in the ear of the beautiful girl that is Nick's crush du jour. She comes over to Nick and says: "Your uncle told me you're going to tell me something that will completely blow my mind."

So it appears the old Roger isn't dead after all. :)

Now that we're all on the same page, allow me to address Sarah's comments:

I spent 106 minutes of my life watching an amoralistic, insensitive, immature, shallow, judgemental, problem drinking, chain smoking sexual predator corrupt his nephew.

So if I interpret correctly, what you're saying is that Rog is a regular guy. :^)

I would ask the following in the spirit of Socratic dialogue: Did he corrupt his nephew or did his nephew make him confront his own flaws (see above)?

If there was a point or message, it went flying over my head. Explain it for me! Please!

There was no point. I was playing a mean practical joke on you, trying to get you to pee away $4.50 and 106 minutes of your life. There: Feel better? :^)

To me, the opening scene in the bar where Roger is riffing on how men might eventually become sexually obsolete is key to understanding the movie. Why? Because judging from his subsequent actions, that is more likely one of his deeper fears. 

He's certainly wasn't in a relationship of equals with Joyce in terms of her needing him, even though it seemed obvious to me he wanted to believe it was about more than just sex -- or, failing that, that sex would give him some power over her. It clearly didn't.

There's your petard, Roger: Hoist yourself on it.

(Question: Is Joyce a male or female character?)

Roger's life in New York had taught him gamesmanship, but no apparent ability to relate to women as anything other than targets (unlike the way Joyce looks at men :) ). One gets the sense he always feels he has to be "on." I was left thinking he probably doesn't have any women friends.

One reason he got angry in the parkette, I suspect, is that he saw that gaping hole in himself -- along with the fact that Andrea and Sophie seemed to like someone who was unarmoured more than they did him.

At the end of a really bad night, where did Roger end up? At the one place where he would have some illusion of control -- a grubby commercial sex joint.

Was it ground-breaking because for once the asshole didn't get the girl? That romantic comedies glamourize assholes? And this one didn't?

You've summed it up brilliantly! :)

In its own way, besides being an observation on modern sexual mores, it makes a small plea for decency.

Does that help?

Anyways, I'm always sorry to hear when movie recommendations don't work out. But I still think Roger Dodger is a film worth seeing -- although a few critics have said men and women probably see it differently.