You Don’t NOMI
YOU DON’T NOMI, documentary, not rated, 92 minutes, available Tuesday, June 9, Fandango Now, 3 chiles
When Showgirls came out in 1995, the general critical consensus was that the story of a hard-luck Las Vegas stripper was artless, borderline pornography. The acting was bad. The dialogue was forced. And while the movie was visually grand in scope, the sex was laughably un-erotic. At the time, it was not considered a movie that empowered women. Fast forward 25 years and feminism is different, as are some mainstream feminists’ views of sex work. Ideas about women’s agency in film and in real life have evolved and become more nuanced as well. It’s from these vantage points that Showgirls is explored anew in You Don’t Nomi, a documentary by first-time director Jeffery McHale.
The doc is a hodgepodge of critical voices, some of whom love the movie, some who hate it, and some who have gathered in packed screenings for the express purpose of publicly mocking it. (Its title is a play on the name of the movie’s protagonist, Nomi Malone.) In terms of cinematic history, Showgirls gets grouped with Valley of the Dolls (1967) and Mommy Dearest (1981) for its female-centered combination of ambition and absurdity. Through archival footage, we are taken through the careers of screenwriter Joe Eszterhas and director Paul Verhoeven, who made Basic Instinct together in 1992, and that of the lead actress, Elizabeth Berkley, who played the studious Jessie Spano in the early ’90s teen sitcom, Saved by the Bell. As Nomi, Berkley’s performance is largely cringe-worthy, but she certainly captures the deeply traumatized young woman’s seething anger. One of the most enjoyable (and enduringly fascinating) aspects of
Showgirls is the way it elicits such a spectrum of reactions, from boredom to disgust, sometimes in a single viewer. It’s a movie that’s fun to argue with. You Don’t Nomi is similar, in that it doesn’t present any real answers, but it does invite disagreement. None of the critics or fans interviewed in the movie come across as experts, but everyone has strong opinions. (For instance, one female critic in the mix is convinced that the only thing Eszterhas knows about women is that some of them like to do their nails, and so all of his female characters are bizarrely focused on their nails.) Although it’s fun to laugh at Showgirls’ shortcomings, the documentary would have benefited from the inclusion of critics who could provide stronger plot and character analysis. While the dialogue in Showgirls is terrible, the storytelling really isn’t — but it’s treated as though it is. Indeed, it’s the story’s nonstop twists and deceptively complex emotional range that has kept our attention all these years. It must be why we watch because it’s not for the sex scenes.