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Best selling writer and humorist David Sedaris firmly refused to allow any of his novels/writings to be made into movies until now. I’m not sure if that is because his humor is autobiographical and self-deprecating and often concerns his family life, or the simple fact he would hate the end result. Now that he has relented and giving permission to newbie writer/director Kyle Patrick Alvarez to convert his essay ‘Naked’ into a full-length feature, I think after sitting through it, it will be a very long time before he allows this to ever happen again.
David has these grand illusions that picking apples on a fruit farm alongside itinerant exploited immigrants is noble and will ground him after the pretentiousness of Yale. Its none of these things except hard back-breaking poorly paid manual labour, so when the Farmer tells him about a better easier job at the apple processing factory he jumps at it to escape. He also jumps out of the window in a panic when Curley a handsome fork truck driver who he has been flirting with, takes him home and shows him his collection of sex toys.
He runs off and ends up staying with a very creepy Born Again proselytizing recovering alcoholic Christian who had ‘found God’ after losing his leg in Desert Storm. Jon puts David up for a while and trains him as his ‘apprentice’ so that he can help make jade wall clocks shaped like the map of Oregon that he hope will make his fortune.
Disapointing , flat and bordering on annoying. If it does ever find its way into a cineplex near you, I would suggest you stay home and read Sedaris’s essay instead.
★★★★★
