Sleaze and desist

>> New Best Friend is just pathetic

by MARK SLUTSKY

You’ve probably never heard of New Best Friend, an allegedly sexy thriller from director Zoe Clarke Williams arriving in cinemas this week. And this is for the best. The movie purports to be a mystery, but the only real mystery I could ascertain in New Best Friend was: why is this movie being released in theatres? Why has it not been, as it so desperately deserves to be, shuffled off to straight-to-video limbo?

We’re talking about a movie that has four nubile (well, somewhat nubile) co-eds involved in a mysterious overdose. Three of them happen to be rich and socially predatory, and one of them’s a poor girl struggling to fit in. They do crazy things like talk explicitly about sex and throw parties. Two of them are even working on a sociology project called “Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way,” which keen viewers may suspect has some bearing on the movie’s richly developed themes. And one of them is Dominique Swain, a veritable straight-to-video superstar, with titles like Intern, Girl and The Smokers on her resumé. She’s a sure sign this movie belongs in Superclub Vidéotron.

Canada’s own Mia Kirshner is, I suppose, the star here, as the aforementioned poor kid who falls in with a bad crowd and ends up comatose. She might not actually be the star, though, as the movie seems to change its mind halfway through and follow poor little rich girl Meredith Monroe (Dawson’s Creek), who’s upset at her dad for not giving her a job. But maybe the star is Taye Diggs, who plays the college town’s determined sheriff, Artie Bonner (“Artie Bonner”?). Curiously, he doesn’t really dress like a cop, but more like a guy who shops at the Gap and fancies wearing a dollar-store “Special Agent” badge on his shirt.
Whatever. Maybe New Best Friend could have been good as a shameful rental if they’d upped the sauce factor a little bit, but instead of sexy the filmmakers have gone the sleazy PG route, which these days entails having the characters talk, rotten explicit expository dialogue and all, like they’re in a porno. What a sleaze-fest! :

New Best Friend opens Friday, April 12