Holy Crap: "Perfect Ending"

It's a soft-core porn film! It's a soap opera! It's the worst of both genres!

I can't remember the last time I saw a movie as ardently, urgently bad as "Perfect Ending," an embarrassing attempt at uplifting gay-power cinema. It is poorly acted, written with a computer program that strings together cliches, and it's shot as if by a toddler who had been handed an iPhone. It's as if 1950s sitcom actors were interpreting a '60s soap opera, all under the direction of an early '80s Cinemax hack. It's a riot.

Barbara Niven -- whose resume includes such titles as "Psycho Cop Returns," "Depraved," "Humanoids of the Deep," "Breast Men" and "Love Boat: The Next Wave" -- stars here as middle-aged Rebecca Westridge, a rich, hard-drinking, sexually deprived suburban housewife.  Rebecca's sassy lesbian pals get her to admit that she's never had an orgasm, and one of them proposes that she hire a female prostitute.  And the friend conveniently has a cousin who runs the agency and just happens to be played by Morgan Fairchild.  If the opening scenes featuring John Heard -- as the boorish husband who is such a repulsive cretin that he tells ethnic jokes! -- didn't place this squarely in 1982, then the appearance of the star of "Flamingo Road" calibrated the time machine with Swiss precision.

Oh, but Rebecca can't possibly sleep with a woman! She's straight, and married. But, alas, she relents and makes an appointment. And of course, just like when anyone hires a prostitute, a stunningly beautiful olive-skinned full-lipped model/artist half her age shows up at the door. But, no! Rebecca Westridge can't go through with it. She's too shy. It's wrong! And she sends Paris away. Oh, but this feline seductress will be back. But, no! Rebecca must resist again -- and run toward the door, dropping her purse as she fumbles with the knob, as if being pursued by Lon Chaney. This dangerous dance goes on for about an hour before Paris finally gets a clear shot at popping Rebecca's cherry.

Niven, who is no B-movie virgin, does a convincing post-coital purr. It is the only passable feat of acting in the entire film. The three actors playing her concerned grown children struggle to screw up concern over their parents' marriage and can't even convincingly pretend to worry about mom missing dinner -- she never misses dinner!, they marvel, Brady-style.

All of this is preciously presented by Nicole Conn, who's been allowed to produce these soft-focus melodramas sparingly over the past two decades.  Conn's amateurish script suffers further from her penchant for extreme pointless close-ups and the distracting habit of letting a scene's images linger while starting the dialogue from the next scene. It's confusing, not artistic.

For the piece de resistance, Conn dives full-on into movie-of-the-week mush by following up the Big O with the Big C. A character tragically gets a cancer diagnosis, but conveniently, it's the make-believe kind that doesn't involve any discernible suffering or any reduction in breast perkiness. Actors get to "play sad."  Conn, ever the fauxteur, gets to shoot a funeral as if it's a bar mitzvah.

And everyone gets to learn a valuable lesson about love, tolerance and oral sex. Heartwarming.

GRADE: F

Holy Crap is an occasional series about unique films that cut a wide swath from brilliant to awful. Check out a previous entry here.