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subscribe to style file blog via RSSnot so sweet tooth
January 16, 2008 9:50 am
The year is young, but it’s a safe bet that 2008 will see no stranger film release than “Teeth.” Opening January 18, this old-school indie centers on Dawn, an abstinence-advocating high schooler, played by Jess Weixler, who’s got more reasons to keep a lock on her panties than most irrepressible teens: Namely, the girl’s got teeth down there, and this vagina dentata packs a nasty bite. As written and directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein, “Teeth” plays like a scabrously funny mash-up of “Heathers,” “Hostel,” and the writings of Hélène Cixous, and in so doing, puts a deviously feminist twist on the word “gorno.” But what keeps the film hanging together is Weixler. With her open, English rose features and translucent expressivity, the Juilliard-trained actress comes across as something like a young Kate Winslet; likewise, she shares Winslet’s constantly underrated ability to play an absurd part with total integrity. “When I first got the script,” Weixler admits, “I slammed it shut a third of the way through. I was like, um, no way.” But there was no escaping the role: As Weixler recalls, her audition for the two-bit part of Dawn’s best friend wound up nabbing her the lead. “At that point, I went back and read the script all the way through,” says the actress, who recently wrapped shooting on Jay DiPietro’s “Peter and Vandy.” “I thought I owed the movie that much. Then, once I’d finished, I realized I kind of loved Dawn. I mean, vagina dentata…nobody’s ever played that before.”
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