paulroth Review of Addicted to Fresno

Addicted to Fresno (2015)

Promising start & cast bottoms out with awful trope early on.

[1/10 · 14 August 2016]

Natasha Lyonne, Judi Greer, and Aubrey Plaza all play their parts terrifically, but the promising character driven film hits an awful trope early on. Bad enough that some tasteless humor is introduced in the form of ableist jokes and making light of sex offenders, the tastelessness becomes too much to bear when an innocent (albeit disgusting) man is accused of rape by a woman who's just ashamed of pursuing sex with him. I realize this is a fiction, but the perpetuation of these kinds of fictions just make living in our rape culture all that much harder. Jessica St. Clair of Playing House and one of the nerdy scientists from Better Off Ted were promising, but didn't offset that horrible plot point.