$50K and a Call Girl: A Love Story (2014) Directed by Seth Grossman

This movie isn't blessed with the best title or the most appealing looking cover but it really isn't anything too bad. It's quite good for what it is but I wouldn't say it's a great one.

Good news is that this is a perfectly watchable and pleasant little movie but the bad news is that there still is plenty 'wrong' with it as well. First of all, it's one of those movies that's pretending to be a real documentary, about a real family, going through real issues. The problem with this though is that the acting really isn't ever anything solid or convincing enough for it to ever fully work out.

It's also somewhat annoying and distracting how everything is always perfectly framed and images and sound are crystal clear, even when the 'film-maker' is shooting through a window, standing 20 feet away from the characters. It's also filming things and conversations no normal and real documentary maker would ever shoot. It are all kind of the same annoyances and problems I often have with found-footage movies and in a lot of ways this movie also feels more like a found-footage movie than a mockumentary really. And no, I'm not saying that as a compliment.

The drama gets never too heavy or serious and the movie mostly remains a very light and entertaining one to watch. That's both a good and bad thing about this movie. On the one hand it makes the movie a perfectly fine and watchable one but on the other the lack of depth and seriousness prevented this movie from ever becoming something more than just a fun and light little movie. It's dealing with some serious issues, after all, the main character, or subject if you will, is dying from cancer but the movie hardly ever touches upon the subject of death. I believe this was a very conscious choice but I truly feel the movie was lacking the depth that was required for the drama and emotions of the movie to work out.

I also wasn't ever really feeling the love between its two main characters. They pretty much fell in love out of nowhere and I just couldn't ever see why, or what they had in common with each other. Perhaps it's true that this is also due to the lack of character development. It's kind of weird. For a movie that's all about it's characters there definitely is a shockingly little amount of character development in this movie. We get to know far too little about the background of each of the characters.

But really, it's a perfectly fine, little, harmless movie to watch, despite all my criticism. It's some perfect light entertainment and definitely much better than either its title or cover would suggest. It's worth giving a go, especially seeing how some other people are already falling in love with this movie. Not me though obviously but I definitely still see it as a good movie.

7/10

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