MONOGAMY (Dana Adam Shapiro). Opens Friday (April 1) at the Royal. See listings. Rating: NN
Rashida Jones is simply terrific in Monogamy as Nat, a slightly distracted young musician who has an unexpected health scare as she’s preparing to marry her fiancé.
There’s just one problem: the movie’s about the fiancé, and he’s kind of an asshole.
Specifically, he’s Theo (Chris Messina), a photographer obsessed with a client (Meital Dohan) who’s hired him to shoot her in a series of provocative situations. Fixating on his mystery woman – who identifies herself only as Subgirl – Theo starts to withdraw from Nat. When a staph infection lands her in the hospital, it just gives him more time to play stalker.
There’s an intriguing idea rattling around inside Monogamy, co-written by Evan M. Wiener and director Dana Adam Shapiro – an attempt to mix the observational aesthetic of the mumblecore movement with the voyeuristic tension of early Brian De Palma.
But the hipster affectations of Shapiro’s characters – and a weak central performance by Messina, who comes across as a poor man’s Mark Ruffalo – throw up a wall of ironic distance that keeps the drama from taking hold.
Jones creates a real, believable portrait of a woman trying to hold her relationship together, but the movie can’t see her as anything more than a plot point.
