By Marie Straub
Nikki (Ashton Kutcher) is young, handsome and looking to live the glossy, easy, high life that the cream-of-the-Los-Angeles crop indulge in daily. Without the financial means or inclination to work, and facing the reality that LA is filled with beautiful people (every homecoming king and queen from across the US), he has learned to use the talents he does have to live alongside the dream as best he can. As a sexual grifter (confidence trickster), Nikki has mastered the art of identifying rich, single, older women, working his way into their lives, homes, and beds so that he can live off the spoils of their labour. He lands a 'real sweet deal' when he finds Samantha (Anne Heche), a wealthy but lonely attorney who is more than happy to spoil him with designer clothes and let him enjoy her house as long as he is keeping her sexually satisfied. Nikki, however, is not willing to settle with a hot meal ticket. Keeping his grifting 'work' in perspective, he likes to indulge in sexual dalliances wherever and whenever he can, with an impressive string of beautiful women parading through his life for his pleasure… until he encounters the stunning Heather (Margarita Levieva) and it appears that he may just have met his match.
Nikki's sexual adventures are quite graphically represented, and while I can appreciate the need (in the context of this film) to effectively demonstrate the seedy existence which he has embraced, there comes a point where you’ll be thinking – "OK, I get it, Nikki is a dirty slapper who has a lot of sex, which he is good at, and women love him for it". While Anne Heche is in the kind of phenomenal shape that will have men drooling and women (even twenty-year-olds) green with envy, I personally could've done with seeing less of her. The never-ending coitus is graphic – let's just say that the only reason I didn't see ALL of Ms Heche's bits, was because Kutcher's hand was in the way. Still, I could have gotten past this. What really lets this film down is the script – it starts out promising to be dark and different, but then it rolls towards a relatively predictable conclusion. What do you think the ultimate lesson for a guy who uses women for financial gain would be? I'm not going to answer that for you, but I'm betting good money you know what Nikki is destined for in this one. Kutcher, Heche and Levieva all give strong, credible performances, but, unfortunately, that is not enough to save this film from itself.
Los Angeles is a dark and dirty place filled with beautiful people, only some of whom have money and power. This is an interesting premise to spring from, but the film never gets anywhere. It takes a snapshot of the dark and dirty, adds a postscript that reads 'and there is lots of sex' and then tries to tack a love story with a moral tale onto the back of it. The film's credits roll over a close-up of a bullfrog belonging to Nikki's friend Harry, who is always covering for his bad ways. Nikki feeds it a frozen mouse and the final close-up, held for the duration of the credits, shows this frog slowly swallowing this mouse whose tail disappears bit, by bit, by bit. It's slightly stomach churning, but seemed to be saying everything the film had been trying to – this frog eating a mouse is not particularly fun to watch, but it is fascinating and it is impossible to look away from this close-up of its real nature.
Spread tries to take a close-up look at LA's real nature – it's not particularly fun to watch, but it's also not fascinating, and, had it not been part of my conditions of employment, I would have most definitely have looked away. Frog 1,
Spread 0.
If you enjoy soft-core porn and have a serious crush on Ashton Kutcher or Anne Heche, race to your nearest cinema and buy a ticket and a box of popcorn. Otherwise, go find a bullfrog and feed it a mouse. Two stars - one for the frog, one for the actors.
Spread is showing at Nu Metro Cinemas from 19 March 2010.