Trading Favors (1998)

Powerful

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

High school nerd meets free spirit/jailbroke Rosanna Arquette and sets out on crime spree and journey of life. Similar to HIT AND RUN and SOMETHING WILD, it turns very mean and bloody in the last 20 mins, when Arquette's thug boyfriend shows up. Alanna Ubach has nice cameo as white trash bar pickup, but the scene is as pointless as the rest of the picture. Arquette's character is more annoying than appealing (remember her GREAT cameo in the otherwise blah TVM THE 60s, as an SF hippie chick? inspired casting). Pretty poor, except for a few minutes with Ubach, and of course Rosanna in the tub.

The most obvious flaw...horrible, horrible script. This movie had a potentially good story, but it was ruined with bad dialogue, continuity problems, things that were never explained, gaping plotholes, sub-plots that went nowhere, and just plain stupidity. Not to mention the awful, cliched directing of Sandra Locke. Not even two great performances could've saved this movie. So it didn't matter that Devon Gummersall and Rosanna Arquette give horrific performances. The thing is, they're better actors than this movie would have you believe. The best of the Arquettes, Rosanna Arquette (Silverado, After Hours, Desperately Seeking Susan) has some fine moments - like a great scene in the beginning when she painfully pulls her handcuffs off - but gives an overall weak performance, by her standards. And Devon Gummersall (Dick, When Trumpets Fade, and the brilliant My So-Called Life) is much worse, acting with no conviction or emotion what-so-ever. But I won't lay blame on the actors, who have been good in other roles. The script is awful, and the bad direction doesn't help. Do me a favor...avoid this movie.

This film, directed by Sondra Locke, suffers from the plodding pace that is all-too-familiar in movies helmed by "serious" female directors. With essentially no comic relief, TRADING FAVORS crawls from beginning to end, getting no help from the anemic Devon Gummersall (from the TV series FELICITY), who delivers passionless rote in the male lead. Rosanna Arquette is another matter, however. At age 38 when this was filmed, her appearance in a prolonged topless bathtub scene shows that physically she is in her prime, and her acting is just as superb as her looks. It is a shame she gets little or no work in big-budget movies, to which she could bring a good measure of class and glamour.

Although this is a good story with a few surprising twists to keep you watching, if it were not for Rosanna Arquette this movie would not be worth seeing.