Introducing Jodea Review – Genuine, Funny, a Quirky Romantic Comedy
- Details
- Category: Indies, Docs, Foreign Film
- Published on Saturday, 05 June 2021 08:47
- Written by Janet Walker
Introducing Jodea, from Fairmount Pictures, presents a quirky, fun, romantic comedy in the land of Hollywood where dreams sometimes do come true, and the house doesn't always win, as an impossibly bad actress meets a down on his luck director.
The film opens with snapshots of Hollywood, the pinnacle of every talent's dream. With camera panning, over the bright lights and big city, a radio announcer introduces the latest in Hollywood gossip.
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We meet our two characters, Jodea, played by Chloe Traicos, and Zac Kawalsky, played by Jeff Coppage, in side-by-side snapshots as each wake in their hugely different environments.
Jodea, who as one of the fortunate in the world of up-and-coming talents, lives in a camper parked in her landlords' driveway and our famous director who is waking his palatial home, with his lovely wife, Isabella, played by Yadria Pascault Orozco.
Jodea's life is the cycle of a pre-gig talent, fixing her resume, working as a waitress which allows her the time off when she secures a few on set PA gigs, running to auditions, trying to sneak past the gatekeepers at agents' office, and of course handling automobile breakdowns.
Zac Kawalsky, once Hollywood's darling director, needs this film to be his comeback hit. His fall of grace has been well documented, a stint in rehab, a row with a deeply connected critic, Craig Sheeran, played by Ceasar James, and his career was nearly over.
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Still living his A-list days, he refuses to sit on the set and provides directions to the cast and crew while he sits in his trailer and watches the set remotely. Between his wife, Isabella, and his leading man, a TV talent, the shoot is going nowhere fast.
Jodea has been hired as a PA, she drops a tray of snacks which creates a noise on the soundstage and causes a distraction. This results in an injury to his wife's nose as our TV talent misjudges the distance and clips her with a punch. She's down and out. The TV Talent is fired. And now production on Zac's comeback film, which is all the rage on twitter, has been suspended. Needless to say, Jodea is fired and escorted off the set.
The next day, she is trying to sneak past the gatekeeper at the office of Hollywood super-agent Grant Greener, played by Kent Hatch. She, of course, is caught and escorted out. As she is sitting in the parking lot, she is rear ended by Zac Kawalsky, who writes her a check for her troubles. Only he misspells her name.
She chases him into Grant Greener's office and by chance, in one of those rare moments, her timing is perfect and with production halted, and the need for a new leading lady, she is given an audition. No twinkling lights and pixie dust magic, she is impossibly bad and dismissed.
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However, jokingly Grant says, "if you can get a performance out of her, I'll get Ethan Burns for your film," the A-list action star that was Kawalsky's first choice.
What follows is a week of effort to find the performance, the emotional key to unlocking this moment. The audience is drawn into the scenes as the odds of securing an entertainment opportunity are rare, and even though innately the audience knows the outcome, to see her struggle generates deep sympathy.
Our super-agent, Grant, is sneaky, underhanded, a circumventor, and of course, an emotional manipulator, who explains to his talent, that his actions are for their well-being and when he is forced to honor his bet, he begins to work the circumvent machine to have this newcomer, who still has a soul, destroyed.
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The cast delivered strong performances and the audience is pulled into the film, as we see this actress, Jodea, who is so bad, pitifully bad, so much so that the action star, Ethan Burns, played by Kayd Currier, remarks during shooting, "she is so bad she has to be sleeping with him."
Introducing Jodea is funny, genuine, a feel-good romantic comedy. The film didn't have slow moments. It was interesting and engaging all the way through the spoofs which ran through the end credits. Throughout the film Hollywood institutions, key locations on every up-and-coming talents' dream map are featured throughout.
Introducing Jodea opens in select theaters, June 4, 2021 with streaming platform to follow. See it.
Country: USA.
Language: English.
Runtime: 105minutes.
Director: Jon Cohen.
Writer: Chloe Traicos.
Producer: Mark Cooper, Jeremy Lynn, Lou Pizzaro.
Cast: Chloe Traicos, Jeff Coppage, Yadria Pascault Orozco, Kent Hatch, Ryan Pratton, Asger Folman, Los Pizarro, Miles Faber.