I was reading this little gemof a story over at Huffpo and most of the comments were like “This is stupid, why do they even report on this stuff” because that’s an easy comment to make. I thought, for a moment, that maybe they had a point. These people aren’t famous and the fact that they were arrested naked after a comically out of control swingers party is really nobody’s business, after all. Still, I love reading stuff like that and it isn’t a recent journalistic phenomenon, either. People have always enjoyed reading about orgies.
The loving couple
Anyway, I saw the story and thought, dang, that would make a good film. It’s got sex, violence, cops, bad language and it’s set in Florida. I see Cameron Diaz as Tina Norris and somebody like Nick Nolte, except Nick’s too old, as Barfield. Even the names work.
The film opens with a zoom in from space, at night, to an outline of Florida, America’s penis, all lit up. Camera zooms in and out on various parties, from sedate soirees on the pier, to parties on yachts and cruise ships, to masses of sweaty youth dancing in clubs and having wild back yard pool parties to a very repetitive reggae song as the credits roll, the theme is that the whole place is just one big party, it’s a crazy state, but occasionally interspersed with sirens, which become more prevalent as the credits wind up and the story opens with the police pulling up, at 6 a.m. in front of the Barfield/Norris abode. Tina Norris is naked and swearing like a motherfucker, revealing incredibly embarrassing details about their marriage as she throws random easily breakable items at Barfield’s head. (see why I think Cameron Diaz would be a good choice for this role?) A ragtag neighborhood crew of people who might be up at 6 a.m.- some drunken neighbors, an elderly bird watcher, the garbage men, maybe a paper boy (do paper boys still exist?) watching the scene in various states of shock, bemusement and downright hilarity. Eventually, police get them into the car.
Then, the twisted tale of their marriage, their orgies and what went wrong that night is told as a series of flashbacks, often overlapping so that you get two perspectives of a funny situation like in “One Night at McCool’s,” which was a pretty stupid movie overall but it had some great lines (Whaddya mean, you don’t got no car? Even bums don’t not got a car!) and I liked that technique. But, each vignette ends with them really more in love with each other (Chicken Every Sunday, Dan Dailey and Celeste Holme, 1949)
The film ends with them happily reunited and cleared of all charges, walking out of the courthouse. Then, they see a good looking young couple and as they approach them you realize that the whole scenario is starting again.
Barfield and Norris. Like Romeo and Juliet, or Sid and Nancy, but nobody dies.
www.gurukalehuru.com 