When your name is Spooner and you don’t know how to spoon, there's something to be fixed. Of course, spooning isn’t Spooner’s main problem. Underperforming as a car salesman and forced to move out by his parents on his 30th birthday—without an apartment to move into because he keeps looking for one that has a sick home theater set-up—knowing how to spoon a woman is symbolic of his stunted maturity. When he meets and falls for Rose, in the course of pursuing her, he improves both as a spooner and as a man. At least, that’s the idea.
Matthew Lillard’s perceived persona as a perpetually grungy teen did him good in the 90’s, when he was consistently starring in teen movies even when he no longer looked the part. Recently, he’s been able to continue playing a teen despite getting older, doing an impeccable job at voicing Shaggy in various Scooby Doo cartoons. As Spooner, he uses that experience to create a believable manchild, who likes to see himself as a man but doesn’t have the ability to act it—intimidated even by the prospect of sex. Unlike other similarly stuck guy characters, Lillard actually infuses Spooner with teen-like brattiness that makes his more lecherous actions seem like naive mistakes.
Nora Zehetner, who's better known in femme fatale roles like in Brick and Heroes (back before it derailed), trades the attitude for quiet demure with a character that only registers as a nice smile. She's the indie film dream girl: cute as a button, virginal in a way that doesn't threaten the male lead's awkwardness, but spontaneous enough to be a fun challenge for him. Most important of all, she's available, unnoticed, and open to falling for dorky strangers.
In reality, sure, cute girls fall for awkward guys all the time. This dream-come-true, happily-ever-after scenario isn’t as fairy tale as the “attractive girls will only fall for attractive guys” social programming would have us believe. There’s a variety of reasons why they would, but the one constant is that there is a reason. Rose, on the other hand, falls for Spooner for no apparent reason other than he’s there and no one else is, despite his ineptly creepy way of immediately clinging to her to prove his love. What makes it a fairy tale is that the relationship isn’t earned, but rather an incidental thing to reward Spooner with for his personal growth.
With a slacker protagonist like this, the girl is typically already willing, and all the guy has to do is take a minimum amount of responsibility that’s for anyone else would be a given expectation, but for him is a monumental achievement. It’s not very romantic, because he’s a donkey that needs to learn how to carry some weight and she’s just the carrot being dangled in front of him. Spooner has charming leads that are well-equipped to disarm its audience, but they are running nowhere in an unoriginal late-life coming-of-age story that serves no purpose than to be another wish-fulfillment embrace for the underachievers.
"Spooner" is on sale March 15, 2011 and is rated R. Comedy, Drama. Directed by Drake Doremus. Written by Lindsay Stidham (screenplay), Drake Doremus, Jonathan Schwartz, Lindsay Stidham (story). Starring Christopher McDonald, Matthew Lillard, Norah Zehetner, Shea Whigham.
