Girl 6

After a confrontation with a director who forces her to take her top off in an audition, the title character of the film storms out and is subsequently dropped by both her agent and her acting teacher. Unable to get `proper' acting work, she moves into the world of phone sex. Getting a job with an office-call firm, Girl 6 is one of many girls, acting out whatever fantasy her callers want. However, the more confident she gets the more she starts to lose touch with herself.

When I write a review of a film I have just seen, it helps me to write a little summary of the plot to help me think about what I have just seen. I sat this because I don't want you to think that my opening paragraph suggests that plot is a key part of this film - it isn't. What exists in the place of a solid narrative is a series of stylish scenes, spinning characters and good performances. I can totally understand why so many people just hated this film - god knows it does itself no favours - however fans of Spike Lee should find much to keep them watching as it is very much the director's film. Lee, however, cannot find anything to really build on in the screenplay and the plot is never very satisfying; the film's energy just about covers this until the end where Lee realises that he hasn't really gone anywhere to generate a traditional conclusion - this means that the serious stuff doesn't ring true.

However Lee is the driving force behind the film and it is his stylish direction that keeps all the fragmented scenes/sketches/skits together. He uses different film stock to good effect and the stuff he does with the camera is typical of what we have seen in his other films - except here he does it a lot more. Of course, this is style with little narrative substance and that is not a good thing but, if you are going to do style without substance, then you'd better do it as well as Lee can do it. The film leaps all over different styles including the Jeffersons, Foxy Brown and many others; in a way I suppose this is meant to be 6 losing touch with herself on the way to finding inner confidence and peace but it doesn't really work (and the `falling down a dark lift shaft' subplot/snippets are too heavy handed on top of this).

Lee's direction is the first reason for watching this film, but equally worthwhile is Randle (and not for the reason rather juvenilely suggested by many reviews here). Randle is a great actress and she shows it here - it is rather sad that she has actually done quite few films and too many of them have her in small supporting roles (Bad Boys I & II, Spawn, Space Jam, Malcolm X and so on). Here she has very little character to work with (not even a name!) but she made me forget that simply by the range of her performance. She is asked to do a lot and, despite lacking audience involvement in 6, her performance shows the range that she has - she should really be given better roles on the basis of this film, it's just a shame there aren't really that mean good roles for actresses approaching their 40's (never mind black actresses approaching their 40's!). The support cast features plenty of well-known faces - none of them actually have characters, but mostly they do OK whatever their contribution is. Washington is a good-looking guy and does OK with a character that I never understood. Lee himself does his usual role - he is amusing but contributes to the lack of narrative. The callers include people like Lee-regular Byrd, Peter Berg, Imperioli and Richard Belzer - they do what is asked of them and it isn't their fault the film doesn't work. Batson's acting coach is OTT, Campbell does nothing but look sexy, Madonna is actually OK but other like Berry and Silver merely show their face. Tarantino is suitably brash prior to his public falling out with Lee and Turturro just seems to be there for the sake of finding a part for him. Despite the many stars, it is Randle that carries the film - her character is poor but her performance is great.

Indeed this sums up the whole film. To watch it is rather infuriating as it lacks characters, meaningful narrative and plotting. If you are a fan of Spike Lee then you will enjoy the style of the film and the fact that his behind-the-camera skills are there for all to see. Aside from this the only other reason to really watch it is a great performance by Randle that will almost act like an audition tape for her - no character but plenty of range and ability! The vast majority of people will dislike this film and I understand why. There is nothing to it but Lee and Randle make it worth a watch once.

Amazing how badly received was this film. Only an average of 5 from the IMDb viewers?? In my opinion it is a remarkable film from many points of view, daring and interesting, one of Lee's best.

There are many layers in this film. Let us start with the story - an Afro-American actress refuses to expose her body for screen tests, finds herself unemployed, and the lucrative job she finds is in the phone sex industry. Is this job less exposing and more honorable? It seems it is, and what comes plays on a fine line between acting and living a virtual life, that takes over the mundane aspects of the say-to-day life (a kleptomaniac ex, a timid neighbor). The dream plan becomes more complex, intertwined with the story of a little girl that went through an accident to be saved redeemed by the good people around. The film asks questions about the border between passion and addiction, between real life and imagination in a series of lively sketches. Lee with his Afro-American New York reminds here Woody Allen at his best when re-creating the Jewish New York.

Unfortunately, the end is conventional and a little bit confusing. However, the film has many qualities, and a strong cast, first of all the amazing Theresa Randle. I wonder how such a wonderful actress disappeared after such a film, does anybody know what happen to her career? Good movie, worth watching, growing up in time. 8 out of 10 on my personal scale.

A good performance by Theresa Randle carries the movie. Theresa is believable and charismatic in the lead role (not to mention good-looking [grin]).

There are a number of nice touches and funny bits. The way Theresa is gradually drawn into the phone-play and begins to half-believe the fantasy is well done. Halle Berry does a good cameo and the practice session where Naomi Campbell firmly puts down a sleazeball caller is hilarious.

Enjoyed the music too. Prince wrote some of the songs and in particular there is a really nice blues vocal in the scene where Girl 6 waits to meet 'Bob Regular'.

Complaint: I wish Spike Lee would stay out of his own movies - he can't act. His flat, emotionless performance spoils the credibility of his supposed friendship with the Theresa Randle character.

place your rating here.

Theresa Randle deserved far, far better than this movie as directed by Spike Lee.

Ms. Randle plays an aspiring actress mercilessly beaten down in the beginning by neurotic acting coaches, lecherous s.o.b. directors (except for Spike, of course), abusive production assistants telling her she can't go to the bathroom, etc., all laid on in hystrionic overdrive by Mr. Lee. He could have turned down the volume by three degrees and made his point more believably. She works three jobs to pay for her psychotic acting teacher's tirades, seemingly believing this is normal acting training. She walks out of an audition after being coerced to show her breasts by Quentin Tarantino, which costs her a huge opportunity, but preserves her dignity. (Showing her breasts was completely unnecessary and felt as exploitive as the audition. They could have shown her from behind and Quentin Tarantino's reaction, and her face as she is humiliated by doing it. Or she could have left before removing her top; having her do it after a long, lingering time feels that we get to have our jollies at her expense. (Isn't this the definition of "exploitation"? I *don't* believe this was an intentional point by Spike Lee.) Randle is presented by walking out as a woman of character and integrity. Naturally, her next job stop is to become a phone sex operator. We believe we are about to learn the inside scoop of how the phone sex industry works. Nope. We learn what the horny male perception would like the phone sex industry to be, which is especially bizarre considering this movie was written by a woman.

Girl 6 takes to phone sex like a fish to water, getting more turned on than her clients as the movie proceeds. We learn nothing more of her than that; which makes "Girl 6" the perfect title of this movie. Why do we need to know her name? The movie gives us no insight into her character, her motivation other to pay her rent, or reason to watch it. It's like participating in a phone sex conversation where you can see the person on video on the other end of the line.

I have no idea why Spike Lee made this film. We are introduced to a woman who is more interesting in the first 5 minutes of the film, as a woman struggling to keep her integrity in the face of abuse, than in the remaining two hours. We learn nothing of the phone sex industry, (not that this is a particularly burning issue for our times), and are not enlightened at all by the end. In addition, the character does unlikely things like agree to meet one of her frequent sex callers in person (!!). Then the phone sex addict stands her up. Just like a horny sex addict to do that. Was the "6" in the title referring to the girl's I.Q., or to Spike's, for expecting us to believe this happens, or that phone workers get turned on while talking to anonymous, masturbating schmucks? The depiction of her in the beginning in no way jibes with anything later in the film.

There is a danger in making movies about exploitation in that directors that depict it may seem to cross the line into exploitation themselves, unintentionally. I would like to give Spike Lee the benefit of this doubt, but I can't. As we learn absolutely nothing from two hours of heavy breathing, I feel, (pardon the expression), jerked off by a director who has created a film about jerking off, in a less subtle and more exploitive way than the industry it is supposedly based on. And that Theresa Randle, a first-rate actress, has been exploited by a man who claims to understand the word more than any other director around, but understands women about as deeply as the clients who call Girl 6.

I hope Randle gets to appear in the kind of movies with the directors she deserves.

This is my loudest and most vulgar review, in response to the tone of this movie. Three stars, based on story and direction only.

Girl 6 is not a laugh-out-loud comedy so much as it is a satire of the nature of the struggle of the typical New York City actress with big dreams. She can hardly get a job and eventually resorts to using her talents to the most basic and competently lucrative degree as a phone sex girl.

The film held my interest to a great degree, but only because of the visceral experience of watching it. John Corso and Malik Hassan Sayeed's cinematography, which ranges several different sorts of film stock, and Lee's consistent talent with the placement of music combined with the film's fascinating look is beautiful. There are several feelings that I felt that took me on a ride, but they were empty feelings, fleeting ominous moods, energy. The story doesn't fit. Thus, the movie is only stylistically moving. If the script had been directed by anyone else, it likely wouldn't be worth it at all.

The substance of the film is basically nonexistent. The satire is not cohesive because there is no real point the film makes. This is certainly one of Spike Lee's worst films, but it certainly has a beauty lathered on top.