When a comedic take on phone sex is content to wrap a chick buddy flick around antiseptic sex jokes and ha-ha wobbly sentiments, the result is more grossly uneven than grossly funny. For a Good Time, Call…suffers not a little from Bridesmaids envy. The smartly done, acerbic Bridesmaids. The two leads here (Lauren Anne Miller and Air Graynor) may have relative savvy, but ludicrous premises and plot contrivances spoil much of the fun. While you could say a straight arrow chick (Miller, who also co-wrote the screenplay) brazenly taking on her roommate’s secret phone sex business falls somewhere in the neighborhood of female empowerment, it’s mostly a moxie undermined by derivative humor and crippling female friendship sitcom-isms. The film professes naughtiness, only to feel much too sanitized.
Not all the jokes are flat. The chemistry between Miller and Graynor, when not overtly hearts-and-flowers cheerful, is often robust. Despite Graynor having dropped pee on (you read that right) Miller ten years back, they’re thrown together as roommates by a gay mutual friend (Justin Long), who’s a comedian. (Nobody has real jobs in this flick yet the shared apartment is palatial and overlooks Gramercy Park.) This after Miller’s breakup with a boyfriend (Mark Webber) who calls her “boring.” Needless to say, he’s a bonafide cad by film’s end. But not before the repressed Miller at first discovers Graynor’s surreptitious phone operator gig, proceeds to help her out in a hands-off business-wise fashion, then eventually, well, you can guess. We also have parents who just show up at the door (what, an apartment this nice doesn’t even have a door buzzer let alone a doorman?), a repeat phone customer who becomes a crush of one of our co-stars, and an unlikely job in publishing to interfere with our storybook heroes’ business partnership. The whole thing feels as dated as a Walkman since first-time director Jamie Travis didn’t even bother to set this thing in a previous decade. Don’t know much about phone sex except that it’s probably gone the way of Duran Duran.
There are a couple of nice cameos (both of course phone customers): one whom you’ll definitely recognize, maybe not the other. Those I won’t spoil. For a good time, see Bridesmaids.
2.5 Dildos Left On The Coffee Table (out of 5)