For Love and Stacie

This film arrived on my doorstep just after the ‘06 festival, along with a polite note from the director explaining that while he’d completely missed hearing about the fest deadline, he thought he’d send in a copy anyway for us to check out.

It being an Austin production, and I being always one to keep abreast of local films, I eagerly gave it a quick once-over to decide if I should watch it right then, or add it to the stack of films to watch that month.

It’s tagline read “A tale of love lost and dreams that never die.”

My hand twitched involuntarily towards the monthly pile.

I managed to read on a little more. The movie was about a guy who makes a movie about his ex-girlfriend in order to try and win her back.

Sounds like it could go either way, but could be cool, right? I didn’t think so either, and to the bottom of the pile it went. Below a movie titled Chicken Undead.

Coincidentally, my friend James Segars just made a film titled The Proposal in which he documents his friend’s road trip to New York City to stop his ex-girlfriend’s wedding with a grand romantic gesture that, as you might be able to guess, doesn’t go over as smoothly as planned.

It helps if a novelty film is at least novel, and it sounded like For Love & Stacie had sort of already been beaten to the punch. Kind of like Gus Van Sant remaking Psycho shot-for-shot “because it had never been done before,” only to have that Raiders of the Lost Ark adaptation done twenty years ago by adolescent kids recently surface.

So, a couple weeks later, I finally got around to watching For Love & Stacie. I was blown away. This was no novelty film. It was a killer little flick that, like the upcoming Transformers movie, was more than meets the eye.

Its also a movie that’s very difficult to review, though, because to properly do so would mean to give away many of the twists that make it the surprisingly riveting piece of film that it is. And I hate it when critics write spoilers, and/or quote the best parts of films (or misquote, in Ebert’s case).

So, suffice to say, I wholeheartedly recommend this movie. If you like the dramatic potential of reality TV, but can’t force yourself to watch it because of the apparent conspiracy among television producers to populate their programming solely with the most egregiously moronic and irretrievably asinine dolts on planet Earth, then you’ll probably find For Love & Stacie as refreshing as I did.

It might be because the star, Michael Davis, is actually likeable. What a concept, right? And yet, it feels almost like a revelation after so many shrieking sociopaths on Road Rules and Date My Mom.

So I hear.

It also might have something to do with the fact that Michael’s motivations are more admirable. Unlike the neglected-as-children attention whores on MTV, Michael didn’t put himself in front of the camera to make himself famous, he did it to help his ex-girlfriend’s chances at fame, which is appropriate considering she’s an aspiring actress.

To put it simply, you feel for the guy. Even when he does things that you might think are bad ideas.

Then again, I’m a guy. Girls might find Stacie the more relatable of the two. Either way, you can identify. In fact, this is a great film to watch on a date, or with your significant other. I guarantee you’ll learn something about them.

-Andy Gately