Let’s get Ashton Kutcher right out of the way. By 2009, he was everywhere and anywhere, his good looks and goofy vulnerability a sort of addictive elixir that had countless fans swooning. It’s not that he was churning out anything meaningful on screen, but his ridiculous charms seemed all anyone wanted in silly movies. So it was that he landed the lead in a sex comedy called Spread, playing a self-indulgent playboy, taking the innocent sort of huggable boy next door and turning him into a hyper-sexed jerk. He’s not a good guy. But that’s half the point.
The story centers on NIkki (Kutcher), a Los Angeles gigolo who lives in the homes of the rich women he seduces, using them for money and sustenance, his latest prey a beautiful young and wealthy woman named Samantha (Anne Heche), whom he meets at a club. His confidence wins him a one-night stand where he manipulates her into a morning and then much more, convincing her that he’s looking for a relationship. However, when she catches him cheating on her in her own house, things take a turn, though not quite as expected. She’s got a plan of her own.
That’s about all I’ll reveal of the plot, one that I’ve only just introduced, excluding some key characters that come to play just after leading to an obvious end. What I want to focus on is Heche, who is the film’s only real highlight, the story never all the convincing and Kutcher not at all up to the task of the complex character he’s portraying. He’s reaching for Richard Gere in American Gigolo or a bit of Warren Beatty in Shampoo, but is such a pale comparison to either, he’s practically invisible. So it is that the remarkably intoxicating Heche steals the movie, her seething sexuality and shiver-inducing presence giving the movie all its heat.
While the film is heavily bogged down with senseless droning narration from Kutcher, his sexual antics played out like machine work rather than anything with passion, we find ourselves drawn to the energy Heche provides, from her opening entrance with that silky long blonde hair and swaggering hips to her authoritative shift when things get real. This is electrifying stuff because Heche doesn’t play it like she’s some by the numbers sexpot but rather like a wholly empowered woman who goddamn deserves it. That’s a big difference. I’m tellin’ you. It’s like, BAM when you notice it.
Unfortunately, the film almost abandons her shortly after this, introducing another girl to the mix, a waitress named Heather (Margarita Levieva), and I’ll stick to my guns about spoilers and not say anything more about her, other than she steals precious screen time away from Heche. Either way, Heche, by this point, has made such an impact, one clings to the film only in hopes of seeing when she’ll come back and how she’ll play out. She makes waiting worth it.
I like how fearless Heche is here, the usual short-haired and playful girl next door we’ve come to expect, jumping in the deep end of the sexy pool from high atop the high dive, straight up totally stripped to her birthday suit and absolutely owning it. While Kutcher looks awkward and never for a moment genuine as a man who supposedly makes a living bedding women, Heche is quite the opposite, a sexually dynamic figure that feels earnest. Honestly, she makes it work with her clothes on just as effectively, her back-and-forth with Kutcher at the start a wonderfully fun moment of sexual tension made so entirely by her wickedly tempting body language, not to mention she completely distracts from the fact that we’re watching a near four-minute unbroken single shot that tracks them out of the club and into the street, an impressive bit of direction from David Mackenzie. That’s Heche doing her thing and doing her thing just right.
Heche is not the star, but does get second billing and I can’t help but wonder if during production the filmmakers walked away from the dailies and wondered if they had their cameras pointed at the wrong actor. This really should have been Samantha’s story, flipping the whole genre on its arse and making Spread a whole different ball game. I won’t go as far as recommending the film as it is, Kutcher bland and uninteresting and the plot never as compelling as it really ought to be, but there’s also a part of me that says just watch it for Heche, because you’ve never seen her like this and its work that deserves a closer look.