'Women in Trouble' review

Carla Gugino (Credit: Screen Media)

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The lives of various Los Angeles women intersect and overlap, including porn stars Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino) and Holly Rocket (Adrianne Palicki), professional escort Bambi (Emmanuelle Chriqui), psychiatrist Maxine McPherson (Sarah Clarke), flight attendant Cora (Marley Shelton), masseuse Darby (Cameron Richardson) and vaguely defined but very important Doris (Connie Britton).

The buzz: Writer-director Sebastian Gutierrez hopes to expand beyond the genre films that dominate his resume (his writing credits include “Gothika” and “Snakes on a Plane” and he directed the Lucy Liu vampire flick “Rise”) with a stylized, dialogue-heavy dramedy that basically amounts to several sequences of women talking to each other. Anyone familiar with the work of Rodrigo Garcia (“Nine Lives,” “Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her”) knows this concept can be done well, and Gutierrez clearly thinks he’s on to something—he’s already completed filming a sequel, “Elektra Luxx,” focused on the character played by Gugino (his off screen partner).

The verdict: Penthouse Forum meets Pedro Almodóvar in this frantic slice of trash-masquerading-as-class. Even the best moments delivered by the female-driven ensemble—a mixed bag of charisma and skill level—are wasted on the ludicrous material. Utterly artificial situations often require the actresses to strip down to their underwear (never any further) and recite inane dialogue along the lines of “I loved him so much I didn’t even realize I had a meth problem.” The characters simply refuse to shut up, even though they rarely have anything of interest to say. There’s a certain lurid curiosity to the overall obsession with sex (Palicki gets a whopper of a monologue involving her family dog), but never any sign of the sort of biting wit, authentic emotion or genuine cleverness that might make the film worth seeing. Gutierrez will need to find a pretty gullible audience to buy what he’s selling.

Did you know? Stick around after the end credits for an extended sequence featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a porn aficionado interviewing Elektra and Holly. It’s as painfully unfunny as most of what’s on screen before the credits roll.

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