Sonny
Film superstar Nicolas Cage's directing debut, Sonny follows a very unconventional family as they struggle to overcome personal and financial adversity. Young Sonny (James Franco) returns home to New Orleans from Army service to find his mother Jewel (Brenda Blethyn), a prostitute, in dire financial straits due to her marketability decreasing exponentially as her age increases. Jewel takes heart at her son's return, however, as she had raised him to be a male prostitute and his mid-'20s vitality should be able to provide a much-needed boost to her family's income -- which until now has primarily been based on Jewel's boyfriend Henry's (Harry Dean Stanton) small-time thievery, as well as the income generated by Jewel's new recruit, Carol (Mena Suvari). Sonny initially scoffs at the thought, having been offered a chance for a legitimate job from his Army buddy (Scott Caan), but when that possibility falls through, Sonny finds he has no choice but to work for his mother. more..
Director: Nicolas Cage
Starring: James Franco, Brenda Blethyn, Harry Dean Stanton, Mena Suvari, Josie Davis
Besides "Midnight Cowboy" and "American Gigolo," there aren't many mainstream movies centered on straight male prostitutes. Sonny is a worthy, if indie-style, addition to the list.
While compellingly watchable, it's as overheated as Cage-the-actor's 1991 soft-core (and direct-to-video) "Zandalee," also set in New Orleans.
The day-to-day realities, especially economic, of Sonny and Jewel's lives could have been more fully detailed to good effect, and Cage might have also have risked setting off the tenderness of his storytelling with an edgier style. Even so, few films take the viewer by surprise with such emotional impact as Sonny.
Amid the cliché and foreshadowing, Cage manages a degree of casual realism.
It's just plain lurid when it isn't downright silly, and that "drunk cam," a blurred, cockeyed lens through which Sonny's soused point-of-view is shown, is just a terrible idea.
Nicolas Cage
Deauville Film Festival (2002)
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