A Complete History of My Sexual Failures
June 20th 2008 00:25
A Complete History of My Sexual Failures (2008) is not a horror movie. It’s an hilarious documentary about one man’s love-life-as-nightmare. In a way it’s his bleeding heart as horror movie turned into a very cleverly packaged therapy session and sold as a post-youtube, realityTV odyssey of the Id. Actually it’s not that pretentious at all, it’s actually very accessible, but for those who’d prefer not to see a lanky man having his cock and balls whipped full frontal by a dominatrix then I’d probably recommend something a little less, er … revealing.
Chris Waitt is a thirty-something loo-hoo-ser-her. Dressed in sloppy threads with a blonde haircut and a pasty dreary look that resembles Kurt Cobain masquerading as Prince Valiant, he presents himself to camera in his teenager bedroom (complete with Supervixens poster flanked by two guitars) as an independent filmmaker. He’s been given funding to make a documentary, and the subject matter is his failed past relationships.
Over the course of the next 90 minutes Chris, perpetually armed with sound-recorder, boom and headphones, travels around London and sets off to Edinburgh (a couple of times) to visit his numerous ex-girlfriends (all apparently genuine) to interview them about how and why they dumped him. When he’s not videoing himself at home he’s accompanied by a cameraperson who’s never seen or heard (conveniently none of the exes ever direct questions to this person, although they do occasionally give them a glare).
After Chris, with the help of a friend, sets up a MySpace page in an effort to create some fresh dates, it is revealed that he’s had a problem in the bedroom; he’s got erectile dysfunction, adding physical insult to psychological injury. Apparently he’s a good kisser, but he sucks in almost every other department; all the exes complain of his laziness, lateness and general inconsideration. Chris, in all his idiot oblivion, and after considerable negativity from the exes, comes to the conclusion that the problem lies with them: he’s been habitually dating psychotic women. Ha!
As for the impotency problem, Chris tackles all avenues and eventually tries Viagra. Although he’s consuming several beers at the same time he doesn’t notice any effects and so pops another, and another, and another. Seven pills all up, and finds much to his discomfort stuck with a raging eight-hour hard-on. He takes to the streets, drunk, pleading with female passersby to have sex with him. It’s the movie’s most “staged” sequence (although I’m guessing the reactions are genuine), and the movie’s only real sag into extended slapstick (which I must admit is not my preferred form of comedy). Still, it ups the cringe factor, which is what this doco feeds on.
Watching the movie unfold, with Chris’s ineptitude and all the pitch-perfect-funny interviews with his exes (the ones who actually agree to be interviewed, and it takes Chris’s mother to convince a couple of them [his relationship with his mother, and with ex-gf Vicki, are the doco’s dual anchors of poignancy]), one wonders just how genuine this documentary is as a mirror to Chris's reality. Much of it appears to fuel the film effortlessly; could that many of his exes really be that confident, articulate and nice in front of a camera talking about themselves and a relationship with a very problematic guy that essentially embarrasses them?
For the record I waited through all the end credits and sure enough there was a statement from the director that said words to the effect of; "Several of the women requested to have their names changed, and several of them threatened legal action after I [Chris] tried to coerce them to appear on camera and be interviewed." I’m really hoping when the movie gets a DVD release there’ll be a director’s commentary and “making of” because I’m dying to know if and how the interviews were manipulated and what ended up on the cutting room floor (apart from the director's pride).
The movie’s title is very apt, but also a sly and mischievously clever publicity stunt. With a title such as A Complete History of My Sexual Failures, you can’t help but be intrigued. It’s almost like calling a doco Car Crashes and Train Wrecks … if you get my twisted drift.
The doco is ultimately a comedy of humiliation (the “high” point being his dungeon punishment for crimes against womanhood by Mistress Maisie), with what appears to be a positive ending, Chris is morose through most of the movie, but it ends with him forming a half-smile. Which reminds me; through the course of the movie when a situation turns cringe-inducing (and it’s frequently) Chris turns to the camera with a hapless, gawky expression which cracked me up every time. Pure comedy gold.
Chris appears clueless and only serves to exasperate those around him, especially the women in his life, but including his producer (an obviously staged, but very funny phone call) and very tolerable and endearing mother. However, despite Chris’s apparent immaturity, he can’t really be that dumb because he’s made a very effective and highly entertaining comedy of errors. In fact I’ll be straight up and say this is the funniest feature I’ve seen since Swingers (although the recent – and similarly relationship dysfunctional – comedy 2 Days in Paris written, directed and co-starring Julie Delpy was exceptionally funny and incisive too).
A Complete History of My Sexual Failures is probably the most left-of-field review I’ve done for my Pleasure of Nightmares blog, but it was definitely the most pleasurable nightmare I’ve ever experienced.
Here's the trailer:
As I've been unable to locate any other pics here are a couple of interview clips from the movie:
And here is Chris Waitt's short film How To Cope With Rejection, which features one of the exes from his doco, Danielle (although perhaps he was seeing her when he made this):
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Consumption Malfunction
Equal and Opposite
Arses and Elbows
Footy Power
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Infognito
can't wait!!
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My Apologetics
Nothing harder to watch than humiliation.
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