Some
things sound sexier in theory than they frequently turn out to be in practice,
like Murakami book clubs and dirty talk. Phoebe will learn both these things
first hand. She would really like to make a connection, but she is her own
worst enemy in Jiyoung Lee’s Female
Pervert, which screens during the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival.
Phoebe
works for a boutique PR agency and develops video games on the side. She is
cute and hip, so you would think she would have no trouble attracting guys,
until she starts talking. Frankly, the term pervert might be a bit harsh. It is
like she has a form of sexual Tourette’s that compels her to make creepy,
mood-killing comments.
Clocking
in just over an hour, FP is relatively
brief and a tad repetitive, as Phoebe falls into a predictable pattern of
initially attracting guys with her idiosyncrasies and then repelling them with
her inappropriate weirdness. However, there is a lot of sly satire directed at Nabokov
reading pseudo-intellectual hipsters, the shallow feel-good liberal activism of
millennials, conspiracy theorists with a religious like faith in cheaply
produced documentaries, and organic food eating environmental paranoids. None
of them can withstand Phoebe’s caustic attitude.
That
necessarily means Jennifer Kim is the key to whether it all works and to what
extent. Fortunately, she is absolutely terrific as the exquisitely problematic
Phoebe. Her comic timing is pitch perfect and she radiates an eccentric
charisma that truly lights up the screen. You cannot help falling for her,
despite all the whacked out things she says and does. She somehow conveys a
real heart underneath all the acting out, which comes through clearly in Lee’s
sweetly subtle closing sequence.
