This small, independent comedy is actually better than most of the other recent hits like My Big Fat Greek Wedding that come out of nowhere as surprises that cost very little and make a pretty big splash. If this movie gets the promotion that Wedding did, it's sure to be a hit. Manfast is a hip and witty story of four young women who embark on a fast from any contact with men for 100 days. This is the type of thing you usually see as a wager from the guys who are doing it either for the money or for bragging rights. The women in this movie, however, are doing it to help their friend with her graduate thesis. Things really get out of hand when the father of one of the girls offers a million dollars to anyone who can break the fast in an extremely strange twist on family relationships that borders on prostitution.
The strengths of the film are the main cast, the story and the dialogue. The five main women in the story are all well-developed characters who are portrayed quite well by the cast of Lala Sloatman, Jenny Judelle, Klea Scott, Kate Norby and Annabelle Gurwitch. Sloatman, in particular, struck me as someone that has a great career in front of her. She has a charisma and screen presence that really jump off of the screen and make us guys in the audience really fall in love with her character. At times she was able to really convey quite a lot without saying a word. I think we'll be hearing a lot more from her in the future. I also have to comment on Jenny Judelle, who took a part that could easily have been a cliche - the younger girl in the shadow of her older sister - and managed to give it a bit of depth, particularly in the scenes with her boyfriend Paul, where she manages to break free from his confining expectations for her, while maintaining a light bubbly personality that defines her character.
Of the men in the cast, Jeremy Sisto stands out as someone who did a good job of acting out his character, the most well-developed guy in the film. Sisto also has a screen presence that kind of sets him apart from the rest of the guys in the movie. In contrast to the main cast, some of the smaller roles are disappointing. In particular, I thought both Ethan Embry and Chad Slagle overacted and really slowed down the movie when they were on screen. Embry's character had potential, but I think he was miscast. Slagle took his role too seriously, I think, and maybe should have tried to lighten it up a bit.
The story itself was quite good. I particularly liked the original concept for the film and the character development. The main characters had individual distinct personalities that were well-developed. That is rare for a movie that focuses on more than just one or two characters. I genuinely cared what happened to these people, which I can't say for too many comedic movies. I also found the movie quite sexy, particularly since the attractive women in the movie weren't your typical movie bimbos with no brains and no ambition. These are the type of women I like - attractive, intelligent, motivated and able to survive with or without men.
One thing that really stood out to me in this film, was the setting. I'm from Tallahassee, Florida, and went to high school with the writer/director, Tara Judelle, and one of the stars of the film, Jenny Judelle. I didn't know either of them, but I remember Tara from high school as we had some acquantances in common. I've never seen Tallahassee captured on film or on television the way it was captured here. Some of the overhead shots of the area gave me a perspective on my home town that I'd never gotten in the thirty years I've lived here. I also think the shots of the canopy roads, that are common in our area, but almost non-existent elsewhere, really helped place the story in our region. And I thought the focus on the world's largest phallic symbol - the Tallahassee capitol - was quite funny, especially when it went limp.
Overall, I give Manfast an "A."
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