Half-baked 'Half Magic' is half effective as timely sex comedy
<h3 class="briefHead">"Half Magic" - ★ ★ </h3>
Actress Heather Graham writes and directs her first movie "Half Magic," a timely relationship sex comedy encompassing several positive aspects, and a few negative ones, of an exuberant student film with something to say.
"Half Magic" incorporates the sisterhood elements of "Sex and the City" with the relationship insights of "He's Just Not That Into You" to create a cautionary word to women: Fulfilling men's needs and wants at the unfulfillment of your own doesn't work.
Graham stars as Honey, a single indie film production company employee suffering from childhood sexual repression created by her minister (Johnny Knoxville) preaching that hellfire awaits practitioners of premarital sex.
Honey, for unclear reasons, makes herself sexually available any time to her deplorably sexist, egocentric boss Peter Brock (Chris D'Elia).
Her life greatly improves upon meeting kindred souls Candy and Eva (Stephanie Beatriz and Angela Kinsey) while attending an overblown, overlong self-empowerment meeting during which Molly Shannon exhorts them to profess love for their sex organs.
Candy, a unicorn-loving spiritualist, allows herself to be used as a sexual doormat by her boyfriend, who expects her to do his laundry while he's out with other women.
Eva, who apparently never experienced a fulfilling sexual encounter with her selfish, dweeby ex-husband (Thomas Lennon), is recovering from a traumatic divorce.
The trio forms a fast friendship. Together, they navigate the murky waters of romance searching for hot sex with nice men. (Eva says she'll settle for room-temperature sex.)
Graham reports that she based "Half Magic" on her experiences, which would be frightening enough just for Brock's morally corrupt, misogynistic use for women.
Still, he's a virtual cartoon in a movie loaded with flat and perfunctory dialogue (matching the flat and listless TV compositions of Pedro Gómez Millán's cinematography) and main characters you can't quite work up the proper enthusiasm to root for.
One day, Honey sees her old minister, now openly gay, on the street and demands to know why he put her through years of guilt and anxiety.
He replies simply, "Sorry." And adds, "I think God just wants everyone to be happy."
So does "Half Magic," in which Graham's high intentions offset the lack of nuance and focus in her first effort, a promising harbinger of better things to come.
<b>Starring:</b> Heather Graham, Angela Kinsey, Stephanie Beatriz, Thomas Lennon, Chris D'Elia, Molly Shannon
<b>Directed by:</b> Heather Graham
<b>Other:</b> A Momentum Pictures release. At the Pickwick Theater, Park Ridge. Rated R for drug use, language, nudity, sexual situations. 100 minutes