An Actor Prepares movie review (2018)

Alas, “An Actor Prepares” failed to make me laugh once, aside from one poorly dubbed quip assigned to an extra as she strolls with her companion along the base of a towering Jolly Green Giant statue. “No Samuel, this does not count as a date,” she vows, and for a brief moment, I guffawed with gratitude. If only I could’ve followed those people, glimpsed only from an extreme distance, rather than remain stuck with the boorish pair at the center of Clark’s narrative. The script’s lethal miscalculation is the mean-spiritedness of its humor. Judging by the touch-feely songs selected for a tiresome array of montages, not to mention some strained heart-tugging in the final act, Clark clearly wants to spin a yarn about father-son bonding that will leave us with a lump in our throats. Yet the characters he’s crafted are so off-putting that our time spent with them quickly devolves into an endurance test. Irons plays Atticus, a veteran performer whose oft-praised filmography sounds more like a list of bargain basement porn titles (“Deep Stack Johnson,” “Throwdown at Bitch River” and “Five Day F—k” are among the highlights). The casual misogyny of his behavior is treated as some sort of endearingly eccentric character trait, and that causes the film to hit an especially sour note in light of Hollywood’s widely publicized complicity in sexual abuse.

When Atticus shoves his tongue down multiple women’s throats without their consent, while paying a 25-year-old makeup girl to relieve his 15-year-old son of his virginity, we’re expected to roll our eyes and shrug, “What a card!” He’s heaped the guilt of his own failed marriage onto his son, Adam, who has grown into a directionless man-child played by Jack Huston. Though Atticus was indeed cheating on his wife, he refuses to take responsibility for the pain he’s caused, viewing Adam as little more than a snitch. Perhaps fueled in part by his father’s appalling treatment of women, Adam throws himself into the realm of feminist film theory, spending years on a yet-to-be-finished documentary while teaching college courses before skeptical students. He fumbles for a coherent answer when questioned about what gives him the right to lecture about such subjects, and is exasperatingly inept at breaking crucial news to his “partner,” Clementine (Megalyn Echikunwoke), whom he refuses to call his girlfriend for fear of “infantilizing” her. 

If Adam—and the film itself—truly cared about issues such as gender representation, then the character would’ve challenged his father’s sexist beliefs, engaging in provocative debates as they journey across the country on their road trip. Instead, the film wants us to chortle at Atticus doing lewd and outrageous things that we’ve seen in countless other pictures. Flashing his genitals in his son’s face, Atticus orders Adam to whip out his own member in order to demonstrate that he got the shorter end of the genetic deal. If the mere sight of a bare ass has you in stitches, this is a film for you.