Jaded

Caryn Krooth is an interesting director. But I think she was confused whether to make a sleazy lesbian thriller or a film that about the limitations of rape laws or a police procedural. Carla Gugino is great eye candy. So are the other females including the rather corpulent investigator (Aida Turturro) who always wears low cut dresses. The threesome lesbian skinny dipping that leads to rape is very well shot. Rya Kihlstedtthere is excellent as the vicious lesbian. She really pulled off the role well with the great introduction scene at the bar. Catherine Dent was pretty and I could sense a hint of sexual tension between her and Turturro. But the sexual tension was not well developed. There are certain arty farty student aspects to the film. But overall, i liked it. It does not really work as a mystery/police procedural. But it is a nice little unique film with a great Carla Gugino, set in a sleepy beach town.

(7.5/10)

A young and naive lady (Carla Gugino) gets brutally beaten and raped by two crazed women (Rya Kihlstedt and Anna Levine) during a late, drunken night on the beach. Naturally Gugino is distraught beyond comprehension, while the two others (Kihlstedt in particular) vehemently question Gugino's memory and her motives. "Jaded" is a really ugly movie that I had lots of trouble sitting through. The mature themes are one thing, but the lack of credible performers and a really crazed and demented story turn the picture into a terrible exploitation flick that has no value at all. The trio of female leads prove that they cannot handle the material and end up appearing more like spoiled adolescents than complex adult figures. Turkey (0 stars out of 5).

From the comments below, this movie apparently was not well-liked. With the subject matter being unusual, and some might say salacious, I get that many people may figure it as exploitative. I did not really see it that way. The film was clearly low-budget, and that did hurt it somewhat. I thought that a lot of the actors did fine jobs, if not Oscar-worthy. Rya Kihlstedt did well with a challenging role, and I liked Anna Levine and Aida Turturro as the detective. And Carla Gugino was very good, playing her damaged character with intensity. Someone below commented that she was "plump at the time". I don't know what she looks like now, but I thought she was gorgeous. A real woman's body looks far better than the currently popular Angelina-Jolie-type anorexic look which is NOT attractive. Although flawed, the movie held my interest throughout.

For a serious movie, the box cover for Jaded is all wrong. With moments of strong sexuality, the movie is not a sexual thriller but a drama. Still, with lack of experience from a first time director, Jaded falls short of anything serious. Carla Gugino is the main draw. Wanting to do a serious role, Gugino offers her naked body to draw a large audience to this movie. The acting, at times, is good. An interesting supporting role from Christopher Guest makes Jaded worth watching, from time to time. Still, Gugion's "assets" are the main attraction. Caryn Krooth's amateur film making loses any true drama that Jaded tries to create. The story and acting can only tell part of the story. With simple direction throughout the movie, the story is unable to progress to anything dramatic with a simple director behind the camera. At times, scenes are shot with only one, maybe two different shots. Whether this was an issue of time or budget, the style of direction loses its feel and reminds the audience that they are watching a low budget movie.

I disagree with the other comments made about this movie, because I didn't think the movie was all that bad, I mean, it had a good point to it, which is in the tagline, not all preditors are men, which goes to show us women that we shouldn't just go hating men because they rape women, because women can just as easily cause just as much physical and emotional pain from the damage of rape. Before I watched this movie I didn't even KNOW it was possible for a women to rape another women, so it's opened my eyes WIDE open. I also thought that Carla Gugino's acting was excellent too, she must of had to dig deep to do this role. And I didn't think the rest of the acting was all that bad either. My overall rating of this movie, would probably be 7/10 which is farely good, since not many movies make it past 5 and 6. If you like an intense film about rape, you would like this one. The only foibles I had with this movie was as was mentioned earlier, the "no show" court case that everyone expects, they shouldn't have let the chase for the offenders gone on so long, so that they could have fit the court scene in, it just would have made the movie so much better.