SORRY, HATERS
Directed & Written by: Jeff Stanzler.
Produced by: Karen Jaroneski, Jeff Stanzler, Gary Winick & Jake Abraham.
Director of Photography: Mauricio Rubinstein.
Edited by: Annette Davey & Susan Graef.
Music by: Raz Mesinai.
Released by: IFC.
Country of Origin: USA. 83min. Rated: Not Rated.
With: Robin Wright Penn, Abdellatif Kechiche, Sandra Oh & Elodie Bouchez.

Jeff Stanzler risks becoming one of the very few directors to depict New York City’s post 9-11 anxiety in ways that many audiences will inevitably deem sensational and short of intelligently eloquent. From the onset, Stanzler ignites a cultural powder keg when a Muslim cab driver, Ashade (Abdellatif Kechiche), picks up a nervous but well-to-do white career woman (Robin Wright Penn) one night. Once in the backseat, Phoebe tells Ashade to keep driving uptown, only to change her mind later and ask for a ride all the way to the New Jersey suburbs. During the long ride, Phoebe opens up to Ashade about her high-powered position as an executive at an MTV-style network called Q-Dog TV, where she created the hit show “Sorry, Haters,” about the excesses of the rich and famous. Though Ashade serves as a reluctant companion to his slightly unhinged customer, he has no choice but to open up to her about his life when she follows him during a pit stop to the apartment of his brother’s wife, an illegal alien.

As it turns out, Ashade has a Ph.D. in chemistry from his native Syria and now provides for the wife and baby of his brother, a doctor who has been arrested because of a casual interaction with a suspected terrorist. Phoebe immediately offers to help Ashade get in touch with Q-Dog’s corporate lawyer. With no other resources to turn to, Ashade reluctantly gives in, only to discover Phoebe sees more uses for him than a simple cab ride.

In her first femme fatale role, Wright Penn carefully unveils the depth of Phoebe’s growing dementia that is somehow as alluring as it is chilling. Stanzler has also found a charismatic actor in Kechiche, The chemistry of the two actors brings much complexity and depth to the film, but its latter half simply fails to deliver. As the drama drags on, the politics somehow gets tossed aside as the focus is shifted to the psychotic thrills in the ways of Fatal Attraction or Single White Female. Because Sorry, Haters makes so many references to today’s heated political and societal climate, Stanzler’s playful manipulation of plot structure and the dramatic final payoff cannot help but cheapen the themes the film intended to explore. Sorry, Haters is an audacious effort indeed, but lacks the convincing realism that could have saved it from becoming controversial for controversy’s sake. Marie Iida
March 1, 2006