Film Analysis | Film Reviews

All It’s Got

1 Feb , 2004  

Written by Chris Cooke | Posted by:

A review of the local film 'Everyone's Got One.'

In the world of contemporary film, there are rough but rugged independent films that you can’t forget, and then there are patched-together, filmed-in-my-back-yard indie flicks — as in, "Hey wasn’t that my ex-landlord in that last scene?" Garth Donovan’s "Everyone’s Got One" somehow manages to capture the essence of both. Written by Donovan and Paul Thompson, the movie opens at a screenwriting seminar and follows the (hopefully) fictionalized life of the (hopefully) fictional Garth Donovan, as he tries to write and pitch his screenplay. The end result is an uneven, meandering — yet often savagely funny — send-up of screenwriting culture, sort of a "Clerks" meets "American Movie" meets "Adaptation."

By turns tyrannical, delusional, manipulative and depraved, the fictional Donovan is too proud to get an office job, too arrogant to take a screenwriting class. Instead, he’s determined to bully his way through his script and force his way into the industry, even if he has to alienate everyone around him to do it. Whether he’s mapping out his rise to fame while scrubbing a urinal, compulsively flossing his teeth at odd moments, badgering a famous screenwriter, or forcing his sister to shave his back, Donovan’s character grows on you like one of those repulsive antiheroes whose defects make them all the more endearing.

Donovan (the filmmaker) knows, of course, that the unrelenting persistence, egotism, and arrogance are part of what it takes to succeed as a film director, but he magnifies it to the point of mockery. The slightest sound prevents him from writing, and — control freak that he is — he seizes every opportunity to expound to his sister the glories of the sound of silence. Only an only child could fail to laugh at Donovan’s depiction of sibling rivalry. In the domestic setting in particular, his near-sociopathic egotism reaches comical heights. (Any one of his fights with his sister is worth your average price of admission). The documentary-style interviews with his family and friends always add humorous counterpoints with his own thoughts. (Again, his sister’s words are the most damning — and mercilessly funny.) And footage of Donavan’s early attempts at film adds a kind of punk-rock recklessness and energy to the film.

"Everyone’s Got One" comes at you with all it’s got, sometimes tripping over its own silliness but winning you over regardless. This is about as low-budget as it gets — heck, the entire film was funded by the recyclable cans Donovan collected while working as a garbage man. Shot in the Boston area (posing as New York, I suspect), the film exudes a lo-fi familiarity. And, no kidding, my ex-landlord really does show up to play a bit part towards the end! How’s that for indie?

‘Everyone’s Got One’ has screened a number of times in the New England area and is currently in negotiation for distribution.


'Everyone’s Got One' has screened a number of times in the New England area and is currently in negotiation for distribution.

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