Lipstick

Lipstick follows model Chris McCormick (Margaux Hemingway) as she invites her little sister’s music teacher (Chris Sarandon’s Gordon Stuart) to her apartment, with the friendly encounter inevitably turning nasty as Chris is beaten and raped by her psychotic visitor. Chris subsequently hires a lawyer (Anne Bancroft’s Carla Bondi) and takes her attacker to court, although, as expected, the trial turns acrimonious as Gordon naturally denies any wrongdoing and insists that the lovemaking was initiated by Chris. In its early stages, Lipstick boasts a decidedly overwrought feel that’s compounded by its emphasis on less-than-artful elements – with the film’s pervasive lack of subtlety resulting in an atmosphere akin to a generic movie-of-the-week. The movie, which is hopelessly laughable at times (eg Gordon calls up Chris and plays her one of his Ross Geller-like compositions… in the nude!), unfolds at an excessively deliberate pace that only highlights its various problems, and there’s just never a point wherein the viewer is able to wholeheartedly embrace either the characters or the curiously disjointed narrative. ((Having said that, it’s impossible not to derive some enjoyment out of a few of the trial scenes – with the highlight undoubtedly Carla’s vicious cross-examination of Sarandon’s smug character.) By the time the gleefully over-the-top and spectacularly shocking finale rolls around, Lipstick has established itself as a pervasively uneven drama/thriller that is, for the most part, simply too slow for its own good (ie had the thing moved a little faster, one might have been more willing to overlook its deficiencies).

** out  of ****