A Southern Belles LLC production. Produced by Craig Cohen, Jennifer McNamara, Jonathan Right, Zack Sanders. Executive producers, Fabio Fasolini, Glenn Rigberg, Greg Whissel, Matthew Woods. Directed, written by Paul S. Myers, Brennan Shroff.
With: Anna Faris, Laura Breckenridge, Justin Chambers, Fred Weller, Judah Friedlander.
Southern Belles" is a shrill, overbearing farce in which characters never rise above the level of caricatures, and actors are encouraged to act at, rather than with, each other. Undiscriminating cable viewers and video renters may take a peek, but likely will tune out well before closing credits.
Written and directed by newcomers Paul S. Meyers and Brennan Shroff, comedy is suffused with broad redneck humor and white-trash stereotypes. Two young women with cutely similar names -- Belle (Anna Faris) and Bell (Laura Breckenridge) -- dream of leaving their small Georgia town to live more exciting lives in Atlanta. But even as store clerk Belle schemes to raise quick cash to finance their relocation, barkeep Bell drifts from a bad relationship with a drunken deadbeat to a budding romance with a handsome cop. To its credit, pic manages to spring one surprise: Near the end, one woman gingerly steps out of the closet, and the other reacts with nonjudgmental, no-big-deal response. Otherwise, "Southern Belles" is predictable with tech values that are no better than they have to be.
Camera (color, DV), Eric Haase; editor, Katie McQuerrey; music, P.T. Walkley, Neil Perry. Reviewed at South by Southwest Film Festival (competing), March 13, 2005. Running time: 90 MIN.
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