Sundance Select: David Mackenzie’s Spread

The Sundance Film Festival have done a great job at fine-tuning the total number of final entries but realistically speaking there are just so many films one can pack in eight days? My magic number falls somewhere between 24 and 35 and with my “Sundance Select” series, I’ll be previewing the films that have the best chances at making it into my coverage.

I’m guilty of not having seen David MacKenzie‘s last picture Hallam Foe (or Mister Foe depending on which side of the Atlantic you reside in) and I’m also guilty of not caring much for Ashton Kutcher filmography but this down and out in L.A tale which sounds like the story of at least one percent of residents in this packed city (I think this is where the occupation known as pool boy came about) has got me curious. There is also the factor that MacKenzie‘s 2003 drama Young Adam will perhaps be among my top 100 films of this decade. 

Scripted by Jason Dean Hall and Paul Kolsby, this is set in modern day Los Angeles, Spread is a hard biting story about a high-end lethario, Nikki (Ashton Kutcher), who has slept his way into a life of privilege. He shares his secrets with us as he hosts parties and beds scores of women, all while living it up at the Hollywood Hills home of a middle-aged female attorney, Samantha (Anne Heche). Everything is going swimmingly until Nikki meets a gorgeous waitress named Heather (Margarita Levieva), who, unbeknownst to him, is playing the same game that he is. As the truth of their life unravels, they find themselves sexually charged by a game of one-upsmanship that has them dining at fine restaurants and crashing posh parties, until the truth of their lives forces them to choose between love and money. Inspired by classics like Shampoo, Breakfast at Tiffanys, and America Gigolo, Spread profiles a sexual grifter and his prey.