Friday

Roger Dodger (2002)



Roger (Campbell Scott) is an obnoxious and self-centered bore, who fancies himself so charming and intelligent beyond reproach that he can get away with saying anything. He is also incredibly insecure about himself, and masks his lack of self-esteem with overflowing cockiness. It's a delicate balancing act, prone to easy disruption, which is what happens when Roger gets dumped by the older woman (Isabella Rossellini) he has been sleeping with, who just so happens to be the boss of the advertising agency in which he works.

Into the splintered psyche of Roger comes the teenage son of his sister, Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), who tells his uncle that he is in town interviewing for colleges, and has a personal interest in learning how to meet and attract women. His mother has apparently told him that his uncle Roger is quite the ladies' man. We don't know if this is true or not, but we have seen the rejected Roger insult and offend two random women with his brand of acerbic analysis, so we definitely know he's not shy around the ladies.

Seeing his nephew as a way to prop up his floundering ego, Roger takes him on an odyssey through the streets of New York, imparting predator wisdom to his nephew's young receptive ears. At a singles bar, they pique the curiosity of two beautiful women (Elizabeth Berkeley and Jennifer Beals) who are surprised at the naivete of the younger male, so much so that Roger feels upstaged and sabotages the evening by embarrassing the entire party.

This is the hero of "Roger Dodger," a film by first-time director Dylan Kidd, who also penned the screenplay. Roger is someone who makes us squirm because he is so dismissive and hurtful to other people that he does it to himself in the face of rejection. As a advertising copywriter, he describes his job as instilling fear into the populace, making them question themselves and their own worth, so that they are convinced that they can salvage their value by purchasing the product his firm is helping to pitch. Roger has carried such an attitude into his real life, where he uses his words to make people feel unwanted and unimportant. With Nick, this strategy backfires onto his own self, and at the end he is face to face with his own failure.

The jewel of the film is Campbell Scott's portrayal of Roger. He makes Roger so dislikable that his own unhappiness is transparent through his behavior with his nephew. To make someone so vulnerable yet so distasteful is a testament to Scott's performance, and the wit-filled dialogue of Kidd. The ending is a bit clumsy, and some of the camera work is a little excessive, but the dialogue is sophisticated yet genuine, and we have a sincere desire to see both Roger and Nick find a peace within themselves, rather than manufacture a persona that is doomed to fail.