EIFF: Zack and Miri Make a Porno

What I adore most about Kevin Smith movies is the dialogue. His characters fling such witty and insightful banter back and forth it’s like Wimbledon for intellectuals with funny bones. So I was saddened by the inclusion of so many “f*cks” and permutations thereof in this movie because I have always subscribed to the belief that expletives are the simplest fall-back position for people too lazy to access adequate vocabularies. (doesn’t stop me from using expletives – which is exactly how I know their use is symptomatic of not bothering to try to express oneself more articulately) But once I mourned that, I found this to be a really original, funny movie. If you can’t figure it out, Zack and Miri make a porno. To make money to pay rent, if you care. It’s a blue romantic comedy. Zack gets Miri, Zack loses Miri, Zack gets Miri back. I didn’t really ruin the movie for you, because once it gets into the romantic arena, it is paint by numbers (another disappointment). But it’s relatively easy to push from your mind that a handful of scenes regarding Zack and Miri’s burgeoning relationship are uninspired and barely qualify as dramatic effort, and just enjoy the majority of the show.