Themes: Playing the Field, Battle of the Sexes, Fish Out of Water
Main Cast: Campbell Scott, Jesse Eisenberg, Isabella Rossellini, Elizabeth Berkley, Jennifer Beals
Release Year: 2002
Country: US
Run Time: 104 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Writer/director Dylan Kidd got a chance to make his script for Roger Dodger into a feature film when he boldly approached Campbell Scott in a café in Greenwich Village and made his pitch. Eventually, Scott would agree to executive produce and star in the film, and was responsible for bringing Jennifer Beals and Isabella Rossellini onboard. Scott stars as the eponymous Roger, a successful New York ad man and self-proclaimed master of reading and manipulating women. The film begins with Roger out for drinks with his co-workers and demonstrating his verbal gifts. "Words are my stock in trade," he explains as he expounds. But he soon learns that his boss, Joyce (Rossellini), wants to end their clandestine sexual relationship. Roger gets another shock when his teenaged nephew, Nick (Jesse Eisenberg of TV's Get Real), shows up unannounced the next day at his job. Nick explains that he's in town for an interview at Columbia and soon admits that he wants Roger to take him out and give him a crash course on women. Soon the pair is out carousing, but when they run into the lovely Andrea (Elizabeth Berkley) and her friend, Sophie (Jennifer Beals), Roger discovers that despite Nick's sexual desperation, the teen is temperamentally unsuited to Roger's transparent womanizing mode of operation. In short, Nick is a sweet, open, and sensitive boy, while Roger proves himself to be a misogynist pig. Their differences grow even starker when Roger decides to crash a party Joyce is throwing that night, and brings Nick along. Roger Dodger was named the Best Narrative Feature in competition at the 2002 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review
Roger Dodger is an impressive debut for writer/director Dylan Kidd. Kidd has written a lot of sharp dialogue, gets strong performances from his accomplished cast, and he keeps the action moving at a nice, jaunty pace. Campbell Scott (Singles, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle), as the title character, again demonstrates his adeptness at playing amusingly loquacious men. Roger's apparent belief that he can talk himself out of -- or into -- anything provides a great deal of the film's humor. Jennifer Beals and Elizabeth Berkley are smart and sympathetic as the women pursued by Roger and his young nephew, Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), and Kidd invests these characters with the necessary depth to give Roger's manipulative games an unpleasant edge. Eisenberg is a likeable presence, and believable as an adolescent of above-average intellect and sensitivity, who's in danger of letting his horniness get the better of him. Unfortunately, Kidd goes a bit overboard in providing Nick with goofy eccentricities. He meditates to calm himself down ("Why should you calm down? You're a teenager," notes Roger). Okay, but he carries around instructions for his body to be cryogenically frozen? That comes across as something only a movie teen would do. The reason he gives to Roger for his appearance in New York will be transparent to even the most dimwitted of viewers, so it's surprising that the hyper-perceptive Roger can't see through it. Some of the humor in the film is a bit forced, and while Roger proves himself quite slimy over the course of the narrative, Kidd, apparently at a loss as to how to resolve things, makes him a bit too cute and cuddly in the end. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Roger Dodger is a 2002comedynoir that explores the relationship between men, women, and sex. Directed by Dylan Kidd and starring Campbell Scott and Jesse Eisenberg, the film follows Roger Swanson (Scott) and his nephew (Eisenberg) during a night on the town in search of sex.
After cynical New York advertising copywriter Roger Swanson (Campbell Scott) is dumped by his on-again/off-again girlfriend, Joyce (Isabella Rossellini) — who is also his boss — his painful workday is further complicated by the unexpected arrival of his sixteen-year-old nephew, Nick (Jesse Eisenberg). After asking to spend the night at Roger's, Nick reveals that he has come to ask for help—in hopes of ditching his virginal status, Nick begs Roger for a lesson in the art of seduction. Embittered Roger then takes on the role of a nocturnal drill sergeant in an imaginary war between the sexes, starting Nick's training at an upscale singles bar. There, they meet two beautiful women (Jennifer Beals and Elizabeth Berkley) who turn out to be less malleable than Roger expects.
Although this first attempt to seduce women is unsuccessful, Nick chooses to continue the quest, which takes them to Roger's boss's party. There they find Joyce's secretary drunk and attempt to capitalize. Once in the bedroom Nick's conscience gets the better of him and he allows her to simply fall asleep untouched.
With Roger spinning out of control and Nick's window of opportunity closing rapidly, they agree to go with the "Fail Safe" plan. This turns out to be an underground brothel. At the underground location Roger cannot let Nick lose his virginity in such an emotionally barren atmosphere, and drags him back to his apartment to sleep things off. Roger has failed to introduce to the mysteries of the world, but has perhaps, gained a glimmer of a conscience. Nick travels back to his mother but Roger shows up unexpectedly to tutor Nick and his classmates on their home turf, bonding with the younger man in a more potent way, in an atmosphere populated by pre-adolescent peers.
At the closing, it is left to the audience which way Roger will go. The dialogue at the end of the film is a delicious tease; has he changed, or has he merely become a better manipulator?
The film was not a major commercial success, but was critically well-received, winning multiple awards in 2002 and 2003. It also served as the coming-out for Jesse Eisenberg, who was widely acclaimed for his conflicted performance.
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 88% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 122 reviews.[1] On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 75 out of 100, based on 33 reviews.[2]
