Diretor: David Mackenzie
Stars: Ashton Kutcher, Anne Heche, Margarite Levieva, Sebastian Stan
Nikki (Kutcher) is a drifter who manipulates women into having sex with him and uses older women to support him. He seduces Samantha (Heche) and bases himself out of his home, but when he meets Heather (Levieva), a young waitress, he begins to wonder if he’s capable of feeling something deeper.
Spread is actually horrible. Nikki is a despicable person who preys on and emotionally blackmails women to sleep with him. He narrates the movie as though he’s the purporter of some great wisdom, with all these tricks and tips to seduce women like he’s some great lothario but basically he’s a pretty boy, and the only reason he’s shown to seduce these women is because the script calls for him to seduce these women. I never got that whole ‘game’ culture where sex is the goal and women are just a means to an end so the film didn’t make a good first impression but it didn’t get any better.
Heche plays Samantha, a successful attorney who lives in a beautiful home yet for some reason she has no self-respect. After walking in on Nikki getting a blow job from some girl she goes to throw him out, but one look from Nikki is enough to mend their ‘relationship’ and they end up back in bed. Well, that destroyed that character for me. After that whenever she got mad at Nikki I had no sympathy because she brought it on herself.
When Nikki meets Heather its initially amusing because he’s on the receiving end of the same treatment he gives women, but it’s quickly revealed that she’s just as unlikeable as him and they become a tag team where he helps her seduce rich men so that they can eat. Of course, they fall in love but the movie wants us to root for them and I simply couldn’t. Although, perhaps it would have been better for all concerned if they had been consigned to each other so nobody else had to put up with them.
The thing is though, I can’t say it’s a bad movie. It’s paced well, the cast is good (Kutcher’s likeability is almost, ALMOST enough to pull off the redemption, but not quite) and the soundtrack is nice. There are some amusing moments too, and some good moments, like when one of Nikki’s ex’s calls him a whore. But the portrayal of women is quite disgusting and there’s no reason to care about the Nikki or Heather. It’s not funny enough to be a comedy and it doesn’t have enough of a message or an arc to be considered a drama so I’m not sure where it fits in.
Also, it gets a few more minus points for ending on a shot of a frog. I don’t like frogs. Vile, ugly, slimy creatures. Huh, kinda like Nikki.
