SLFS 2011 Review – LOVE STALKER

Pete, the main character in LOVE STALKER, a terrific new comedy about a young St. Louis dude cruising for his 75th sexual conquest (it’s his Golden number he explains), does a lot of things you’d expect from a guy whose life revolves around getting laid. As played by Matt Glasson, he jostles and swaggers, hangs out at bars drinking bourbon, and approaches every woman with a lame pick-up line, some which actually work. At home he sleeps on leopard-print sheets in matching underpants but his apartment is otherwise mostly barren because he’s a player, and players don’t stay home much. The self-aggrandizing Pete’s not quite the chick magnet he thinks he is but, despite his obvious sleaze, manages to score plenty just because he works so darn hard at it. Tony (Darek Russell), his nice-guy best friend with no desire to emulate him, finds Pete’s lack of self-awareness troubling but tags along on his prowls for lack of anything better to do. Then a funny thing happens to Pete. He meets Stephanie (Rachel Chapman), a professional on-line relationship journalist, and starts to actually develop feelings for her. She’s his 75th score, his coveted Golden girl, and it changes his outlook on women. But Stephanie discovers his little black book (actually red) with his enumerated and detailed list of sexual victories, and abruptly ends the relationship. Pete lamely explains that every guy has such a journal (true!), but she won’t budge. Rather than take it on the chin, Pete wallows in misery. The tables have been turned, and Pete is transformed into the ‘Love Stalker’ in order to get Stephanie back.

LOVE STALKER is a prime example of micro-budget independent cinema at its best. It’s stylish, well-written, hip, and at times quite funny. Working from their exuberantly witty script, Glasson and co-director Bowls MacLean snake their camera through the bars and lounges of St. Louis and manage to capture best what I want to see in a St. Louis-lensed movie: a cinematic embrace of our city’s landmarks. A quick driving shot passes the gloriously dilapidated Avalon Theater on Kingshighway. An exterior shot of one of Pete’s haunts is the Bevo Mill. We glimpse the Courtesy Diner, the Tivoli, and the soon-to-be-demolished Del Taco on Grand Boulevard (twice!). An extended montage of Pete romancing Stephanie inside the City Museum made me wonder why more films aren’t shot there and when Pete and Stephanie share their first kiss, it’s not in view of the Gateway Arch but in front of the giant praying mantis on the City Museum’s roof. LOVE STALKER makes St. Louis look cool.

The charm of LOVE STALKER is in the dialogue and fine performances. Glasson, who resembles a cross between Tom Hanks and Chris Kattan, plays Pete as the kinda guy you would really hate in real life; arrogant, confident and used to getting what he wants. Normally it’s not the type of character you’d want to spend 90 minutes with but Glasson has good comedic timing and when his heart is broken, despite the way he’s treated others, he generates real sympathy. The film segues smoothly into a series of comical and bittersweet plot developments and Pete actually becomes less creepy as things progress and the lovely Chapman makes for a good foil.

LOVE STALKER is a mature comedy with frank sexual talk and nudity but it’s not a body fluid gross-out nor does Pete go full-on psycho like the title might suggest in his attempts at wooing Stephanie back. LOVE STALKER could so easily have been a disaster. Big on talk, small on action, and with a budget that barely nudges that for a music video, it wouldn’t have needed too much inexperience to make something pretentious or plodding. But thankfully Glasson and MacLean never put down a wrong foot. LOVE STALKER breaks no new ground but it serves up enough simple charms to make it a winner of a date movie. Most men have been like Pete at one time or another and we’ve all had our hearts broken. LOVE STALKER offers the fun of watching another guy go through it for a change.

LOVE STALKER will screen during the 2011 Stella Artois St. Louis Filmmaker’s Showcase at 7:00PM on Tuesday, August 16th at the Tivoli Theatre.