This movie is about two antagonistic roommates (Lauren Miller and Ari Graynor) who gradually start a phone sex hotline (Graynor’s character already works for one, but gets cut out of the majority of the profits) and become friends. If that sounds pretty straightforward, it is, but the movie keeps finding ways to surprise you.
What Works: This is one of the few movies that actually gets better as it keeps going. What starts off as a quasi-bad movie (complete with Justin Long as the stereotypical gaaaaaay besssssst friend) slowly starts to come together as a funny, sharp, and even touching story. Various men float around Lauren and Ari as clients, foes, friends, and boyfriends, but the real relationship is between them. They may pretend to be “in love” on the phone, but by the end they love each for real as friends, and I never thought a movie about phone sex operators could have such heart. Lauren Miller (who I’ve never seen in a lead role before) comes on like Anne Hathaway at her slyest, but Ari Graynor is even better in a true standout performance. [If anyone had seen this movie, it’d be a star-making turn, seriously.] She’s sexy and sweet, cutting but vulnerable, ditzy but never dumb, and it’s in those (believable) contradictions that real characters are created.
What Doesn’t Work: Well, as I mentioned, it wasn’t really until nearly the halfway point that I started to really enjoy this movie, and there are plenty of jokes in the first third that don’t work. Plus, the movie is only 85 minutes long, so to have any section that doesn’t work is too much.
What I Would Have Done Differently: What if Justin Long’s gaaaaaaay bessssst friend!!!! was actually introverted and into cats and liked brooding quietly in the corner of the room? That’d be a gay best friend we’ve never seen before, because we’ve seen the one he plays a thousand times.