The Blowfish Blog

Grudge

There aren’t a lot of grudges in Grudge, though there are many actions that could lead to future grudges. In fact, it’s a downright odd name for the movie, which might have been more accurately titled Want, or (to be a bit more expansive) The Grass Is Always Greener On The Other Side, or maybe even, Stop Going To Whorehouses, Moron, And Screw Your Amazingly Hot Wife!, though that only addresses one of the plot threads, alas. It’s a rather sweet tale as it begins, with the blonde, lean Stefani Morgan literally walking into town and encountering photographer Kurt Lockwood. He photographs her, and before long they’re having illicit sex in a youth hostel. Then she moves in with him, and — after an unspecified amount of time passes — he becomes famous for his photos of her, and she’s his Muse and one true love. Of course, that’s just the beginning of the flick, which means some complication has to creep in, and it does, in the form of Mercedez, who is sort of the physical opposite of Stefani — she’s dark and curvaceous, lush and voluptuous. Setting Mercedez and Stefani up in opposition to one another is a pretty strong visual, actually. Mercedez is a writer working on a story (or a book or a profile or something) about Kurt’s photography, and there’s a spark between them when they meet. Before long, Kurt can’t stop thinking about her, and his Muse no longer excites him. Meanwhile, Mercedez tries to connect with her husband, Trent Tesoro — he’s the one who ignores his hot wife in favor of having sex with prostitutes, which leads to some nice orgy scenes, at least.

The nice thing about this tangle of interpersonal lust is how balanced it is. Mercedez isn’t an evil bitch out to steal Stefani’s woman. Kurt is torn up about his divided feelings. Stefani is kind of catty, but understandably so. Trent is the only really loathesome character. Unfortunately, this soap-opera train wreck waiting to happen doesn’t resolve. The film ends before Kurt and Mercedez follow their hearts and do irreparable damage to their current relationships, with a “To Be Continued” title card before the credits. And it is continued, in the sequel, Illicit, which brings the story to a satisfying conclusion . . . and also manages to stand alone as a film better than Grudge does, since the backstory is all neatly explained, and the story actually resolves. The best thing you can do, honestly, is get both movies and watch them back-to-back. You’ll get lots of hot sex — Stefani gets all the best scenes in Grudge, while Mercedez gets the best scenes in Illicit — and characters you can care about. Not a bad deal.

• Grudge
• Illicit

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, 28 March 2007 at 7:08 pm and is filed under Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.