Often misremembered as a juvenile comedy, David Burton Morris’ 1988 film is a work of strange beauty about ugly characters
Some of you people might get uncomfortable during the first two acts of this movie. Just wait, OK?
— David Burton Morris
I realize that 2019 may not be the ideal year to bring David Burton Morris’ film Patti Rocks (1988) back to America’s attention. Considering that Morris himself felt the need to address audiences with the above quotation before screenings back in the ’80s, it makes one wonder if the insta-conclusion-jumping social-media-mobbers of today would be receptive to a film about vulgar, beer-soaked average joes on a trip to convince a woman to get an abortion. But just wait, OK…? The film is perhaps most famous for its colorful language, but Patti Rocks is an art film that has suffered from being misremembered as a juvenile romp. Much of the behavior acted out by its characters is, as any average film or television student might say, almost entirely “problematic” by today’s standards. But Patti Rocks is a work of strange beauty — a film about ugly subjects and characters, made with an eviscerating love and frankness. Its willingness to pin its viewers with such abrasiveness and empathy is precisely what makes it worth our time.
Currently, socially charged entertainment and art have become so limited by expectations to be so righteously literal, or else so blatantly allegorical in its depictions of ‘heroes’ and ‘villains,’ ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ Most critics and viewers seem to want justice served directly to them as they stream from their couch. So many contemporary reviews show a desire for nothing more than to sink into the comforts that come from judging a work based on its relatability and affirmation of one’s own identity or political beliefs. Patti Rocks refuses to settle for easy reassurances in the face of the ever-lingering social vulgarities that it deals with. For this purpose, I cannot find a better reason not to urge people to seek out this film.
Read Brett’s interview with David Burton Morris and Victoria Wozniak
Patti Rocks picks up 12 years after Morris’ critically acclaimed debut, the long unavailable Loose Ends (1975). Written by Morris with the cast, the film features the same working class duo of Billy (Chris Mulkey of Twin Peaks) and Eddie (John Jenkins) from the earlier film, yet Patti Rocks’ narrative stands strong on its own. Morris follows the men on a road trip through Minnesota to track down a past fling of Billy’s named Patti (Karen Landry). She has sent word that she is pregnant, and the rude and immature Billy, who is married with two daughters, needs support in handling the situation. He calls on Eddie, whom he hasn’t seen in ages, and they take off with a healthy supply of road beers to talk Patti out of having the child.
By today’s standards Patti Rocks may appear rather tame, or at least on par with the expletive-filled comedies released by studios. The film is often compared to Clerks (1994), for they share combative histories with the Motion Picture Association of America. Both films were originally awarded X or NC-17 ratings and were more or less defined by this distinction. But Clerks had Miramax money behind it, leading to a media-blitz and big box office returns; Patti Rocks did not. It was a success in Europe, gained modest acclaim in America — mostly within independent film circles — and currently stands as a gold nugget for crate diggers on VHS.
What Morris does with the extremes of his characters’ profanity is in fact much less profane than the impotent wit of Kevin Smith’s film. Clerks curses to shock us. Patti Rocks works to challenge us. This is a film that wants us not to merely recognize the bounds it crosses with its humor while dealing with hair-trigger issues of gender relations, but to take a bravely unsentimental step toward the unpleasant, often painful truths it touches regarding our culture and the abuses, weaknesses and nasty bravado that make up so many people’s performances of masculinity. Morris and his actors never reduce the characters to stereotypes but instead create a mess of conflicting emotions, ideas and viewpoints. This is not a film of archetypes and generalized morals for viewers to align themselves on the ‘correct’ side of a problem. There is a severity of insight in this film that only comes through its particularity.
Patti Rocks is a comedy that you don’t really laugh at. During their road trip to Patti’s, Billy and Eddie engage in downright filthy and sexist banter, mostly led by the childish Billy. Eddie is more articulate and sensitive, slightly more refined around the edges, but the edge is clearly there. He is a divorcee and aggressive in a more guarded way than Billy’s impulsive “fuck you, let’s fight” mindset. Eddie laughs at Billy’s talk of grabbing women “by the snatch” (timely, eh?) but takes his friend’s boorish descriptions of his wife during sex with a weighted shrug and a wince. He recognizes the vulgarity, but he goes along with it.
For all of its brashness, Patti Rocks handles its characters’ emotions rather delicately. Morris leads us through moments of Eddie and Billy confidently letting their ignorance fly — but never in a way that simply condemns them. Their friendship is rooted in a history of love and frustration, as each believes the other has let him down in the past. They clearly find it easier to keep the conversation in a joking register. The content of their road trip discussions may come across like Dumb and Dumber, but stylistically Patti Rocks operates in a more nuanced manner. Morris’ framing draws us to how isolated these men are in their little space with the smallness of their crude ideas. He doesn’t just shove us up close to Billy and Eddie’s raunchy conversation for shock value. He punctuates these scenes with distanced views from outside the car while they talk away, as lights and reflections flash across the windshield glass, creating a sort of strained reality over their journey. The vastness of the midwestern landscapes beyond their car draw us to how limited their imaginations are in relation to the world around them.
Outside of the car, Morris puts them through extremely vulnerable, often pitiable, situations that confront the shortcomings of their thinking. Billy is placed in multiple positions where his tough-guy exterior is challenged and often bruised. A highlight is when Billy, pantless on the side of the road, meets his match with an older woman who pulls her car over to volley his insults and vulgarity back two fold. She goads him with threatening persistence to deliver on his myth-building of the “garden hose” in his pants, until he is sent running to the car. The woman does all of this in front of her teenage daughter, who laughs and rolls her eyes in the passenger seat.
When the men reach Patti’s apartment, she proves to be nothing like the woman we expect Billy to associate with. She stands as a rebuttal to the nasty attitudes and clichés of the philosophies regarding women and sex we heard earlier in the car. Her presence charges the female flesh that Billy speaks so thoughtlessly of with a vitality and tough-minded sensitivity that pushes both men out of their comfort zones.
Sex does come about in the final act, but it is reached through the formation of a messy love triangle, which instigates the stripping of guarded exteriors and the airing of uncomfortable truths — and is, of course, riddled with interruptions, misinterpretations and displays of brutish and jealous impulsiveness. In the end, we are not granted the satisfaction of seeing the frogs turn into princes, for this would be too easy. In the final act, Morris complicates the experience for his audience by moving the desperate lives of his characters into such unstable territory. Rather than cleaning up its characters’ acts, the film opens their wounds further, asking us to face the ways we justify our own flawed selves and cover up our deficiencies. Billy and Eddie are no frog princes, but their warts become a little more understandable.
You won’t find Patti Rocks on any streaming services in the United States. Go find it at a video store — Yes! Some are still around — or write to Milestone or Watchmaker or Vinegar Syndrome requesting it get a pristine new Blu-ray release. It’s worth the effort.
Update: If you are interested in purchasing Patti Rocks or Loose Ends on DVD, contact David Burton Morris at [email protected]
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All images screenshots from Patti Rocks with permission by David Burton Morris
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