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“Later she pulled me aside and said ‘I’m sorry if I offended you. It’s based on real-life events and adapted from the book Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge by Jim Schutze.)įranzese added that he had a scene that required him to take his shirt off, “an extremely vulnerable moment for me,” he said, calling himself “the chubby kid who wore his shirt in the pool.” He claimed that when he took his shirt off, Phillips broke character, pointed at him and “at the top of her lungs yelled ‘Ewwww gross!!!'” (He also was complimentary toward Renfro, who he said comforted him afterward and tried to boost his confidence and later yelled “Someone give me a real actress!” as Phillips allegedly continued her taunting.) ( Bully centers on a group of teenagers who conspire to murder one of their friends following years of emotional, physical and sexual abuse.
#Bijou phillips bully movie
(See interview with Larry Clark on p.44 of this week's Screens section.Calling the movie shoot “one of the most stressful experiences of my life on or off a set,” Franzese went on to add that he was worried about losing his job, which marked his first film role, given that the character he was playing was straight. And if it weren't so easily dismissible, it would be an easy film to defend. If it weren't so rivetingly realistic, it would be an easy film to dismiss. Clark's film is disturbing not only for what it shows, but how it shows it. There are no heroes or victims, and everyone is at least a minor villain. (Bully's distributors have decided to release the film unrated rather than even try its luck with the ratings board.) The film's naked plenitude (and pulchritude) casts suspicion on Clark's ulterior reasons for making the movie - especially in light of the fact that Bully doesn't seem to have an overall point of view that it's trying to push. Clark sabotages his movie, however, with his gratuitous camerawork that lingers over lithe young bodies in the constant throes of sex and his ever-present crotch shots (particularly aimed at Phillips). These killers' faces are reflected in the glass screens of America's video arcades. Bijou Phillips is a promiscuous sensualist who has a child who is cared for by her parents, another girl is a pushover just out a rehab, one boy is overweight and self-conscious, another an amiable druggie whose brain fried long ago, and Leo Fitzpatrick from Kids plays a character who thinks he's a lot more Mob-connected than he really is. The kids are a representative lot: Bobby is probably the only one who will graduate from high school, go to college, and enter business Marty is a dropout from high school and surfing, who mostly earns money from giving gay phone sex on Bobby's orders. For example, everyone agrees that it would be a good idea to kill Bobby, but a solid plan never comes into sharp focus - even once the murder has fumbled to the starting line. Conversations and events occur as the result of believable teen-think. Aided by its frighteningly superb performances, Bully has an ultra-realistic feel.
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Typical teen thinking is the aspect of Bully that comes off the best. Instead, he beseeches his parents to move to a new neighborhood. As much as he is abused by Bobby, it would never occur to Marty that he could just walk away from this sado-masochistic relationship. The idea is hatched by Marty's girlfriend Lisa (Miner), a Pizza Hut Lady Macbeth who calls in some friends (some of whom have never even met Bobby) to commit the fatal act. Stahl plays Bobby Kent, the teen who is murdered, ostensibly for bullying his best friend Marty (Renfro) and others in his circle. The parents fare little better: They're present but uninvolved, adrift in their own malaise.
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The film draws a disturbing portrait of aimless and valueless American teens, whose ambitions extend to little more than the acquisition of sex and drugs. Based on a true-crime story about a Florida teenager who was murdered in 1993 by a group of friends and his best buddy, the script (by Zachary Long and Roger Pullis) is adapted from Jim Schutze's book about the case.
Larry Clark, the famed photographer-turned-director of 1995's controversial Kids (a story about New York teens who screw around with drugs and unprotected sex) and the underappreciated Another Day in Paradise (a road picture about two generations of thieving junkies), again presents us with disturbing subject matter that becomes ever more perplexing by dint of his sometimes questionable aesthetic choices. In this rests both its strengths and weaknesses. Bully stirs up a troubling stew of emotions that are far from simple to digest.
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