Michael Doneger plays Mitch, a young man who isn't where he wants to be in life, having just been fired from his job, as well as receiving constant criticism from his best friend, JP (Tommy Dewey), about his slight sex addiction issue. Tasked with presenting a worthwhile piece of journalism to secure a new job, Mitch ends up involved with Natalie, a high-class, well-educated escort who might actually cause Mitch to reflect on his own life as he finds out more and more about her.
What you get here isn’t new, and it is something we will see again and again. The Escort, despite trying to appear much more risqué than other films it could sit alongside, is a standard rom-com that had two seemingly incompatible characters realising just how well they can work together.
Director Will Slocombe tries his best, walking a fine line to portray some of the sexual encounters without it feeling gratuitous or too much like simple titillation, and he also seems to be working hard to make the best end product possible on a relatively low budget. There aren’t really any big names to help things along (although Bruce Campbell is very well used in his small supporting role, playing Mitch’s father) and the tone throughout is never radically altered in favour of an “easier sell”.
As admirable as not taking the easy option is, writer Brandon Cohen (fleshing out the story idea from Doneger) also does everyone a slight disservice by skirting around moments that could have easily increased the comedy quotient of the film. As already mentioned, Campbell is great, but he’s only onscreen for a few scenes. The same could be said for the character played by Dewey, someone who could have added some more friction and laughs, but is instead underused. And a cursing little sister (played by Rachel Resheff)? Yep, underused. The same goes for a landlord at the end of his patience (played by Juan Carlos Cantu). On the one hand, I get it. Keep the focus on Doneger and Fonseca. And try to stop this from feeling too close to a teen sex comedy. On the other hand, a rom-com really needs the rom and the com, and the latter could have really helped the former.
The leads are decent, but there’s a sad lack of chemistry between them. It is the supporting cast who have all the fun though, with everyone I just mentioned above doing generally great work. Dewey is probably the least effective of the main cast members, but that is the fault of a script that does even less with him than it does with the others. There are also a number of actors doing their best “major douchebag” turns while paying for the company of Fonseca’s character, which I guess helps to make her like our leading man more, by default.
Although I personally didn’t think the film needed to miss so many opportunities for laughs, I appreciate the attempt to present some young adults discussing various approaches to sex in a positive and open way. The Escort may not be a film to love, and I doubt I will ever rewatch it, but it certainly provides more talking points than your average rom-com. There just wasn’t quite enough honey coating the underbaked platter of genitalia-shaped cookies at the heart of it. And there’s another sentence I never thought I would write.
6/10
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