Chick flick?

As opposed to a 'dick flick'?

Susan Sarandon makes no bones about categorizing Anywhere But Here. "A chick flick as opposed to a dick flick? Absolutely. Although they don't call two guys in the lead `dick flicks.' But men like the film. At least, if their dates want to drag them to it, they probably won't go kicking and screaming."

Making Anywhere an easier option for the guys is the presence of Natalie Portman as Ann, the coltish, coming-of-age daughter. Since her Lolita-esque turns in The Professional and Beautiful Girls and as Princess Amidala in The Phantom Menace, Portman has stirred her share of male interest. To her credit, and the film's, she decided not to capitalize on this prurient appeal by appearing nude in a key scene where Ann, who has just been jilted over the phone by her absentee dad and is fed up with the romantic delusions of her mother, decides to take control of her life by seducing the kid next door.

"I don't have any problems with sex scenes, and I'm not into censorship," explains Portman, who at 18 has decided to take much of the next four years off while attending an unspecified Ivy League school, probably in Cambridge. "But I just wasn't prepared to do it. I know that if I do this big sex scene at 16 or 17, I'm not going to be happy later. I'm going to have people being weird and I'm going to be embarrassed. But I didn't want to change their whole idea of the film, because I thought it was well written and well conceived. So I just turned down the role. To my surprise, they came back a couple weeks later and had that scene rewritten into what's there now. I think it works. More filmmakers should try to be more creative. It gets across the same message without having to be explicit and without having to exploit someone who is young."

Portman's reservation proved an artistic plus, according to director Wayne Wang. "After she turned it down, we looked at the scene. I said, `This scene is really more about her calling her father and needing somebody to hold.' In the end, I think it's an emotional scene rather than a sex scene."

Sarandon agrees. "The essence of the scene was not just sex. The interesting aspect was that she was in charge. What happens during sex is never the interesting part. It's before and after that makes it specific and original. It wasn't necessary that she be seen naked for the point to be made. I don't think anything was compromised and she felt much more comfortable. So why not?"

Well, one reason might be that the adolescent-minded guys who, according to most studios, make up movie audiences want to see more.

"A lot of the guys say, `We don't want to see this. It's a chick flick,' " laments Wang. "When we did our previews, they keep calling it a chick flick, which really bothers me. I think it's a movie about people. It's a movie about growing up. It's a movie about letting go, and it could apply to anyone."

"My feeling is that what reads as sexual tension on screen happens when any two people see each other," says Sarandon. "That connection can happen between young, old, two women, a kid, whatever. For me, every movie at its heart is a love story. They are all chick flicks; they just get called that when women are in the leads."

-- P.K.

---

Back to Anywhere But Here

---