As adroitly executed a directorial debut as you could ever hope to find, this ingenious, sci-fi comedy revolves around a mythological malady which causes carriers to change gender whenever they make love.
Zerophilia (2006)
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Reviews Counted:19
Fresh:5
Rotten:14
Average Rating:4.9/10
Synopsis: Written and directed by Martin Curland, ZEROPHILIA is an untraditional romantic comedy based on the fictional phenomenon known as Zerophilia. A chromosomal disorder by which a person's gender... Written and directed by Martin Curland, ZEROPHILIA is an untraditional romantic comedy based on the fictional phenomenon known as Zerophilia. A chromosomal disorder by which a person's gender changes as a result of getting sexually aroused, the disease first shows up in adolescence. Luke (Taylor Handley) is perfectly happy experiencing all the ups and downs of being a teenage boy, but he is forced to reexamine his gender identity when he suddenly grows breasts while on a date with his dream girl. Informed by a sexy doctor specializing in the condition that Luke's Zerophilia emerged because he recently lost his virginity, Luke doesn't know what to think. The young man spends the rest of the film trying to negotiate some truce between his male and female selves, taking the doctor's advice and trying out both genders just to make sure of his preference. From here, things slowly spiral out of control, with inevitable misunderstandings, several twisted love triangles, and quite a few seductions getting in the way of Luke's quest for self-understanding. Enjoying some success on the festival circuit, ZEROPHILIA is a small film that takes on big issues. The story is ambitious, asking questions as deep as "What is gender?," while trying to maintain a light, humorous tone. In attempting to be both dramatic and funny, the film sometimes lacks consistency, but also succeeds in keeping what could be a heavy, political topic personal and unsentimental. [More]
Starring: Taylor Handley, Gina Bellman, Marieh Delfino, Alison Folland
Starring: Taylor Handley, Gina Bellman, Marieh Delfino, Alison Folland, Christopher Mayer, Kyle Schmid, Adam Zolotin
Director: Martin Curland
Director: Martin Curland
Producer: Jay Whitney Brown, Alan Grossband, Matt Radecki
Reviews for Zerophilia
Amid deliberately campy situations and sophomoric jokes, Zerophilia offers a disarmingly sweet lesson about learning to identify with the opposite gender.
The script's lazy convenience is embodied by a beautiful neuromorphologist (Gina Bellman) who arrives on the scene to explain everything that's going on.
Anyone who understands the meaning of the title or catches all the frog references scattered through writer-director Martin Curland's feature debut will have a head start understanding this confused and confusing comedy.
A half-silly, half-earnest indie with the soul of a John Hughes-era sex comedy.
Even if you'd enjoy spending a day as the opposite sex, you're better off abstaining from Zerophilia and daydreaming about what you'd do with your time.
The admittedly thought-provoking results fail to make the full-blown transition from curious concept to substantial theatrical proposition.
Sexual confusion made manifest in a romantic comedy gender-bender first try by newcomer Martin Curland and a host of young faces and bodies.
There's plenty of material here for a dark comedy, but director Martin Curland isn't up to the job.
Audacious, slightly predictable, semi-disgusting, ultimately not-so-crazy.
Androgyny rules in Zerophilia, Martin Curland's audacious feature about a fictional chromosomal abnormality that wreaks havoc with one's genitals.
Offers a few salient notions about the nature of human sexuality, but matters are ultimately stretched further than a sumo wrestler's bra strap.
With clunky dialogue, jokes that fall flat and an uneven sense of rhythm and timing, the movie looks and feels too amateurish to take on this kind of material.
Originality notwithstanding, the pic is too slight for the big screen.
Zerophiliacs do not exist, but the conviction and daring of this feature-film debut by Martin Curland inspires belief in the impossible.
Latest News for Zerophilia
November 02, 2006:
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