FETCHING CODY (David Ray). 87 minutes. Opens Friday (May 26) at the Royal. See Indie & Rep Film, page 98, for details. Rating: NN Rating: NN
Fetching Cody tries to tell us how good kids turn out bad. What it most-ly makes us think about, though, is why so many well-meaning Canuck films turn out the same way. Art ( Jay Baruchel ) is a Hastings Street addict who supports himself by selling drugs and pimping out his girlfriend, Cody ( Sarah Lind ). When Cody overdoses, a distraught Art, via a mystical street friend’s time-travelling chair, goes back to the future — or takes a Quantum Leap, if you will — to save her.
His trips to Cody’s past uncover lots of middle-class hypocrisy over sexual abuse, homosexuality and (in one bizarre scene) tampon use.
Writer/director David Ray can’t decide if he wants to send up suburban values, sanctify Hastings Street deni-zens or deliver a PSA about teen peer pressure.
The film would be much less watchable without the talented Baruchel (he’s got Christian Slater’s charismatic sneer) as the energetic hustler/dealer. Too bad he and Lind share zero chemistry together and look awfully well-scrubbed and -coiffed for druggies.
