YOU
DON'T NOMI
This
year I was struggling to find a film I loved that I would consider a
“guilty pleasure”, and originally I was leaning towards
“Godzilla: King of the Monsters” as my title of choice. However
I decided to go through my list of films I saw in 2019 one final
time, and thankfully I did as the obvious choice suddenly hit me dead
in the face. What better choice for my guilty pleasure of 2019, then
a documentary on one of the greatest “guilty pleasure” movies of
all time: Paul Verhoeven's “Showgirls”.
I
am a massive fan of Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, and his unfiltered
view of the world. When I saw that MIFF was showing a documentary
about his critically trashed 1995 film “Showgirls”, I immediately
pencilled it in to see. However, the closer I got to my actual
screening of it, the more I convinced myself that I was about to walk
into something of a dud. The point of “You Don't Nomi” is to
look back at this bizarre film and decide once and for all if it
really is a misunderstood masterpiece or a total piece of shit. As
you may guess from my love of its director, I have always sat on the
side of the fence that feels that “Showgirls” is definitely
misunderstood, although I could never claim it to be any sort of
masterpiece.
“You
Don't Nomi” turned out to be truly fantastic and so much fun!
Taking turns to both trash and admire the film, one thing that I
really loved was that it was never mean spirited. Even when it was
tearing down the worth of “Showgirls”, it did so in a fun way.
The documentary itself isn't the “talking heads” piece you may
think it is, as we never actually see any of the participants
discussing the film onscreen. Rather their opinions are done via
voice-over narration while clips from the movie, or behind the scenes
material taken during the shooting of “Showgirls” is played to
emphasise their point. Like I said above, I have always liked
“Showgirls” but damn, if “You Don't Nomi” didn't remind me of
just how odd some of the film's moments and characterisations are.
Elizabeth Berkley's performance in it is particularly bizarre.
Speaking of Berkley, I have always felt so sorry for her in regards
to this film, as it literally destroyed her career. However the
greatest moment of “You Don't Nomi” comes towards the end where
we are witness to an outdoor anniversary screening of “Showgirls”,
with over one thousand people in attendance. The kicker is that
Elizabeth Berkley, Nomi herself, is a special guest at the screening
and is clearly very touched by the turnout exclaiming that she never
got to experience this love towards the film at its time of relief,
so this moment was twenty years in the making. She then turns to the
audience and does that hand gesture famous from one of the dances in
the film that anyone familiar with “Showgirls” would immediately
recognise. The crowd goes berserk when she does it, and personally I
loved watching her take the piss out of herself, as it then became
very clear that she had made her peace with the film.
Surprisingly,
“You Don't Nomi” also looks at the way “Showgirls” has
affected a number of people in the positive, as they share their
stories of what the film means to them, and we get to witness (some
very funny) stage plays inspired by the 1995 film. Again, while most
of these plays mock and make fun of “Showgirls”, they are done in
such a loving manner towards the film. Another interesting thing in
the documentary are the fans that see the film as the third part in
an unofficial “camp” trilogy; “Valley of the Dolls” and
“Mommie Dearest” being the other two films, as well as the way
the people behind the making of “Showgirls” changed their
narrative on what they were trying to achieve with the film before it
was seen by an audience compared to after it had been released.
I
cannot stress enough just how much fun this documentary is, and I
feel extremely lucky to have watched it with an audience who embraced
it just as much as I did. It really was one of my most fun times in
a cinema all year. And if you are wondering what was the consensus
in regards to whether “Showgirls” is a misunderstood masterpiece
or a total piece of shit, “You Don't Nomi” makes the point that
it doesn't matter, as its worth is up to each individual viewer, but
what cannot be disputed is that after twenty five years since its
release, “Showgirls” is a film that is still remembered and means
a hell of a lot to a large number of people. If you are a fan of the
film, I wholeheartedly recommend “You Don't Nomi”.
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