Film

Teeth

Owain Paciuszko 26/06/2008

Rating: 4/5

I was asked quite recently by my friends to tell them about some films I was looking forward to this year; my tastes are often a tad alternative and I can be relied upon (I arrogantly like to suppose) to find a few diamonds in the rough. Of my list of upcoming treats this film seemed to catch the attention of my friends' ears, not through shared excitement but through sheer disbelief at the concept of the film, and I struggled, I must admit, to quite get across the tone of the film in the ensuing discussion.

Basically it's about a girl who has teeth in her vagina. Naturally this probably conjures images of bottom-shelf, video-nasty exploitation flicks and, there are a couple of scenes, that do play to that shocking mainstay of 1980's Daily Mail frontpages. The film however is an odd package, playing somewhere between a Tim Burton and a David Cronenberg film, yet ending up feeling somewhat akin to 80's counterculture classic 'Heathers' in its genre-flitting, blackly comic, rebellious - yet moral - anarchy!

Bolstered by an absolutely stunning performance by Jess Weixler as Dawn O'Keefe, she grounds the film in an emotional and natural reality, that carries it through some of the slightly more ludicrous or broad moments. The film, directed by Mitchell (son of pop-artist Roy) Lichtenstein, seems to switch genres with almost every edit, and this creates a collision of scenes at times; but, if you are willing to go with its devil-may-care attitude then you are in for one of the most thought-provoking, funny and bold little films of the year.