‘Pretty Thing’ Movie Review: Alicia Silverstone Sizzles In Low-Key Erotic Thriller
Photo from Shout! Studios
From Jeremy Kibler
Tawdry in content but usually classy in their packaging, “[Blank] From Hell” erotic thrillers can be a dime a dozen, but it is an irresistible sub-genre, even at its most Lifetime-y. For every Fatal Attraction, Single White Female, and Fear, there’s Obsessed, The Roommate, and When the Bough Breaks. Director Justin Kelly’s Pretty Thing generally follows that same template but colors outside the lines a little bit by playing in more of a gray area and shifting sympathies. Whether or not that approach fully works, this soft-spoken erotic psychodrama does give Alicia Silverstone one of her juiciest co-lead performances in years.
Pretty Thing doesn’t break new ground, but the details and rhythms feel different, a little more low-key and less extreme. Cater waiter Elliot (Karl Glusman) makes eyes at an older woman, Sophie (Alicia Silverstone), at a party he’s working. She invites up to her hotel room afterwards, and he obliges with a stolen bottle of champagne. Sexy time ensues, and before you know it, Elliot gets a spontaneous invitation to Paris on their second date of sorts. (It’s for Sophie’s work, but there’s plenty of time for more sexy time and taking in a burlesque show.) So, why Elliot? Unbeknownst to Sophie, he still lives with his agoraphobic mother Peggy (Catherine Curtin) across the hall, and their relationship is too close for comfort (read: his mom is the wallpaper on the lock screen of his phone). As reality sets in and Elliot wants to have more than just a fling, Sophie pulls back. Naturally, Elliot doesn’t take it well.
Usually prone to dramatize real-life stories, Justin Kelly (J.T. LeRoy, King Cobra) directs a script by actor Jack Donnelly (Malin Akerman’s hubby). While viewers will be fast to label one character as a stalker and the other as the victim, Pretty Thing does unfold less generically than most. Neither character is completely judged or even vilified, as they both get to be protagonists and antagonists. Elliot clearly has some unchecked issues with his mental health—his actions are pathetic, sure, but not unfounded—while Sophie does have the upper hand with her wealth and career status but also firmly tells him her true feelings. When neither one budges, both can play hard ball.
Coming full-circle with her feature debut in 1993’s The Crush where she was hell-bent on getting Cary Elwes to love her and only her, Alicia Silverstone gives it her all. She gets the most to work with, playing a woman who’s just fine having sex with disposable young men as a fantasy from her demanding job at a predominantly male firm. Karl Glusman is persuasive in playing Elliot as a directionless-turned-spiraling young man, enough that one could see why Sophie would eat him up and then spit him out.
Clearly made with modest means, the film is technically elegant on the whole. Tim Kvasnosky’s alluring score combines menace and sensuality in equal measure, building suspense where one might think there is none. Matt Klammer’s cinematography is also dreamy, moody, and unflashy, aside from a 360-degree pan as Sophie, walking home sweaty from a boxing class, realizes Elliot is watching her.
While Pretty Thing wants to do more than titillate, it doesn’t quite provoke the staying power like the staples of this sub-genre. The stakes never feel high enough, even where there are moments of tension. It’s isn’t completely stock but not as psychologically shaded as it could have been, either. What a pretty thing to waste.
Rating: 2.5/5
Pretty Thing is currently in select theaters and on VOD.
