I'm not quite sure how much I enjoyed Variety, but I guess there's a clue in how much I hope to now check out other movies from director Bette Gordon (who also came up with the story idea, which was then shaped into full film form by Kathy Acker, Jerry Delamater, and Peter Koper, with Nancy Reilly also contributing). There's something about her style, although it's maybe just the time period and setting, that calls to mind the excellent work of Lizzie Borden, who delivered some of her best work in the early 1980s.
This is the story of Christine (Sandy McLeod), a young woman who ends up taking a job in the ticket kiosk of a porn theatre. She is looked after by her manager, Jose (Luis Guzman), and initially does a fine job, but it's not long until she starts to become more and more curious about the content being shown on the screen, and she starts to become equally curious about a customer (Louie, played by Richard M. Davidson) she believes may be connected to some major criminal organisation.
Deftly mixing explorations of personal economics with a little bit of paranoia and a lot of sexual exploration, Variety is one of those movies that also works as a great time capsule. There's not really that much going on, the stakes never feel very high, but it becomes something intriguing and thrilling because of the journey that Christine goes on. Gordon doesn't necessarily decide to take things in any one specific direction (this could be darker, it could be sexier, it could be turned into an outright comedy, etc.), but the strangely loose and seemingly wandering nature of the whole thing makes it feel more grounded in reality.
McLeod isn't bad in the lead role, although it's not a surprise to see that she didn't go on to do much in front of the camera after this, and the same can be said of Davidson, who has the easier job of simply being a bit suave and mysterious for a few scenes. There's more fun to be had in seeing Guzman in an early role, as well as spotting the likes of Will Patton and Mark Boone Junior enjoying some screentime.
Although it's about a very specific kind of cinema, Variety is still about cinema. It's about what is on the big screen affecting the thoughts and narratives we create in our own minds, and it's about the loyal fans who choose to spend their time in a dark room connecting with fictional characters, even if they cannot always easily connect with anyone around them. Yes, it's also about sex, and there's a mystery element at the heart of things, but . . . a lot of cinema is about sex, even when it doesn't appear to be about sex.
8/10
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