''Dirty Love'' is a 2005 American
romantic comedy
Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...
film written by and starring
Jenny McCarthy and directed by
John Mallory Asher
John Mallory Asher (born John Mallory, January 13, 1971) is an American actor, film director and screenwriter. He is perhaps best known for his performance as Gary on the USA Network's series spinoff of the movie '' Weird Science''.
Early life
A ...
. At the time of filming, McCarthy and Asher were married; they divorced the month the film was released. Playing heavily off McCarthy's reputation for
toilet humor, the film received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics and was a
box-office bomb; it also received the
Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture
The Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture is an award given out at the annual Golden Raspberry Awards to the worst film of the past year. Over the 39 ceremonies that have taken place, there have been 202 films nominated for Worst Picture and 42 ...
, as well as
Worst Screenplay,
Worst Director, and
Worst Actress for McCarthy.
Plot
Struggling photographer Rebecca Sommers finds her model boyfriend Richard in bed with another woman. Her life falls apart, and she alternates between desire for revenge upon him, sexual promiscuity, and abandonment of all hope of love. Her best friends, Michelle and Carrie, try to set her up on dates. These include one with a freakish magician and another with a man who gives her
ecstasy
Ecstasy may refer to:
* Ecstasy (emotion), a trance or trance-like state in which a person transcends normal consciousness
* Religious ecstasy, a state of consciousness, visions or absolute euphoria
* Ecstasy (philosophy), to be or stand outside o ...
and has a fetish for fish. She attempts to make Richard jealous by taking a director, who is reminiscent of
Woody Allen
Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...
, to a runway show, but he ends up vomiting on her breasts in front of everyone.
Ultimately, Rebecca realizes she should focus her energy on being with someone who truly loves her, and that turns out to be John, her nerdy but caring best male friend who has been supportive of her through the entire ordeal.
Cast
*
Jenny McCarthy as Rebecca Sommers
*
Eddie Kaye Thomas
Eddie Kaye Thomas (born October 31, 1980) is an American actor who rose to prominence as Paul Finch in the ''American Pie'' film series. His other notable appearances include Andy Rosenberg in the ''Harold & Kumar'' series, Jeff Woodcock in ...
as John
*
Carmen Electra as Michelle López
*
Victor Webster
Victor Webster (born February 7, 1973) is a Canadian actor. He is known for being the second actor to play Nicholas Alamain on the NBC daytime soap ''Days of Our Lives'' from 1999 to 2000, and for his roles as the mutant Brennan Mulwray in '' Mu ...
as Richard
*
Kam Heskin as Carrie Winters
*
Deryck Whibley as Tony
*
Guillermo Díaz as Tom Houdini
Cast notes:
* Deryck Whibley's band,
Sum 41
Sum 41 is a Canadian rock band from Ajax, Ontario. Originally called Kaspir, the band was formed in 1996 and currently consists of Deryck Whibley (lead vocals, guitars, keyboards), Dave Baksh (lead guitar, backing vocals), Jason "Cone" McCas ...
, makes a cameo appearance performing their song "
No Reason".
Release
Box office
''Dirty Love'' opened theatrically on September 23, 2005, in 44 venues and earned $23,281 in its opening weekend. The film ended its run two weeks later, on October 6, 2005, having grossed a mere $36,099 in the domestic box office.
Critical response
The film received extremely negative reviews from critics. On review aggregation website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, it has a rating of 6% based on 31 reviews, with an average rating of 2.80/10. The site's consensus states: "The laugh-free ''Dirty Love'' is a comedy dead zone -- it's aggressively crude and shoddily constructed."
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
reports a 9 out of 100 rating, based on reviews from 12 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".
Film critic
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' gave a rare zero star rating and said it was the third-worst film of 2005. In his written review, he stated, "Here is a film so pitiful, it doesn't rise to the level of badness. It is hopelessly incompetent."
Stephen Holden of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' gave the film 0/5 stars, writing: "Even by the standards of its bottom-feeding genre, "Dirty Love" clings to the gutter like a rat in garbage."
Not all reviews were negative. Oz of ''eFilmCritic'' gave the film 3/5 and said "''Dirty Love'' is a surprisingly good effort that will fall short only because of poor direction, poor editing, and the stigma of the lead having only previously been involved in crap."
Jeremy C. Fox of ''Pajiba'' said that although the film is not for everyone, "''Dirty Love'' is in the worst possible taste. It has crossed the Himalayas of bad taste and come out the other side. And for that reason, if no other, I kinda love it." He concludes, "The response to ''Dirty Love'' says less about the movie than it does the bullying, herd-following nature of most movie critics."
Awards and honors
See also
*
List of American films of 2005
References
External links
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dirty Love
2005 films
2000s English-language films
2005 romantic comedy films
American independent films
American romantic comedy films
American sex comedy films
Films set in Los Angeles
Films shot in Los Angeles
2000s sex comedy films
2005 independent films
Golden Raspberry Award winning films
2000s American films