Beginner's Luck (1986)

User Rating:

4.3/10   

Director:

Frank Mouris

Writers:

Caroline Mouris (writer)
Frank Mouris (writer)

Release Date:

January 1986 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

A law student finds himself involved in a menage-a-trois with a free-spirited neighboring couple. Complications...

Plot Keywords:

Reverend | Gas Station | Gas Station Attendant | Independent Film

Cast

Sam Rush	...	Hunter
Riley Steiner	...	Tech
Charles Homet	...	Aris
Kate Talbot	...	Bethany
Mickey Coburn	...	Babs
Phil Kilbourne	...	Willem
Bobbie Steinbach	...	Courtney
John Adair	...	Reverend-Gas Attendant
Cynthia Weagle	...	Stella-Bonnie
Stephen Weagle	...	Don-Ronnie
Rima Miller	...	Judith
John Eisner	...	Nathan

Runtime:

84 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Boothbay Harbor, Maine, USA

Company:

Hot Talk Company

Worlds Apart From Animated Shorts.

The husband/wife combination of Frank and Caroline Mouris, deservedly esteemed for its clever animated as well as non-animated shorts and Academy Award winner for an animated work, is represented here with the duo's sole full-length narrative feature, a weak effort that has deservedly remained essentially unknown. Having but a small source of funding through a grant, the two shot this piece, a tepid attempt at a sex-flavoured comedy, and after dilating it to 35MM, tried to arrange distribution, with scant critical and financial success, as a viewer will readily understand. "Hunter" is a law student whose libido is sublimated, due to concentration upon his studies, until he forms a friendship with neighbours "Aris" and "Tech", an unmarried couple, with an unplanned triangle of love being the result. Just as the trio begins its exploration of amorous potentialities, Hunter's somewhat dim fiancée "Bethany" comes to visit her future groom and he must hide his newfound relationship with Aris (male) and Tech (female). In addition to these proceedings, sub-plots involve Tech's mother "Babs" and her nuptial pursuit of her lover; and a randy co-worker of Aris, "Courtney", who avidly desires him. This all sounds provocative enough, as if the characters have voyaged upon a sea of lust, but the work is weakly scripted and quite devoid of sensuality, seemingly composed, as it were, from the licentious fantasies of five-year-old children. Filmed in a vivid wintry setting at Boothbay Harbor, Maine, the film's cast includes untested actors in the main and is clumsily constructed, although one must concede that continuity and production values suffer from a lack of resources.