Dick: 1999, dir. Andrew Fleming. Seen on DVD (Feb. 27).
You all told me and told me to see this movie, and did I listen to you? Actually I did listen, but somehow I never got around to seeing Dick. This isn’t entirely my fault.
First of all, it is difficult to deal with a movie that has a title that can easily be interpreted as rude when you say it in public. You end up babbling things like, “I’d like to see that movie, what’s it called? about the two girls who accidentally witness Watergate.” And if no one can figure out which movie you mean, well, you’re a bit stuck.
Second of all, as many other people have noted, this movie has been marketed terribly. People see Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams and they assume that this is a movie geared for teenagers. My boyfriend and I had seen Clueless a few months ago, which everyone had praised to the skies, and were fairly disappointed. We figured Dick was going to be the same way. In fact, just as I put in the DVD, he said, “Now, we probably shouldn’t expect much, we should just try to switch off our brains and have a good time.” We were so pleased to be wrong.
Dick is not a teen comedy. Dick is a surprisingly clever movie with a lot of Nixon-era jokes that might sail right over the heads of high-school-age viewers. But people saw two blonde girls starring in the movie and assumed it must be for the teenage market. The poor little movie never seemed to find its niche, so it wasn’t very successful.
I enjoyed Dick very much. (I admit that once you get past the embarrassment of mentioning the title in public, you can have fun acting like a ten-year-old boy in making jokes with it.)
I’ve long felt that Kirsten Dunst was a good actress (I particularly liked her in The Cat’s Meow, one of my favorite movies that no one else has ever seen) but I didn’t know anything about Michelle Williams and was impressed with her acting in this movie. I could not have imagined it possible that a teenage girl in the early 1970s would have a crush on Richard Nixon, but she is quite believable and I had nothing but sympathy for her character. Well, I had sympathy and was also laughing my ass off. It is possible to do both. The girls come off as real girls surrounded on all sides by stereotypes.
And these stereotypes are portrayed hilariously by a wonderful supporting cast. Dan Hedaya does a very credible Dick Nixon (you’ve seen him somewhere before, you know … probably as Rhea Perlman’s nasty ex-husband on Cheers, or maybe in, um, Clueless). Will Ferrell and Bruce McCullough as Woodward and Bernstein had me nearly falling off the sofa, I was giggling so hard. Dave Foley—you know, for my money, we don’t see enough Dave Foley these days (yes, I used to watch News Radio)—was a marvelously creepy little Haldeman. And Harry Shearer, and Teri Garr … you see what I mean? You can’t go wrong with a cast like this. (Okay, you can go spectacularly wrong sometimes, but not this time.)
The plot is very clever and very amusing. You don’t have to remember everything about the Watergate era (I wasn’t old enough to know any of it first-hand myself) but the more you know, the funnier it is. Also, it’s nice to see some lighthearted drug humor in a movie. That may sound terrible to some of you, but I’m tired of the unwritten rule that All Drug Use In TV and Film Must Be Punished. It’s right out of the damn Hays Code. Can we please grow up and let characters enjoy their pot without retribution? Or their Hello Dollys, as the case may be?
Anyway, Dick was both charming and clever, and that’s just what I like in a movie. I’m sorry I hadn’t seen it sooner. Why didn’t any of you tell me?