Movies For Moms: ‘Afternoon Delight’ Is So NOT Delightful
This entire thing is one giant SPOILER ALERT so if you haven’t seen the movie Afternoon Delight and you don’t want to be told the entire plot, don’t read this mmmmmkay?
I was so excited to see the movie Afternoon Delight. This movie was made for ME. Watching the previews it had every single thing that interests me in it. It stars Kathryn Hahn, who I love. You can have your Tina Fey and your Amy Poehler but Kathyrn is my secret girlfriend and I love her.
Plus, the movie is set in Silver Lake and if you have ever been to Silver Lake or lived in LA you know how hilariously awful that how scene is. Here is the preview for the movie so you can see what drew me to spend my $3.99 renting it:
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Which now shall be forever known as “Let’s Watch These Obnoxious People Who Look Dirty All The Time Shame A Sex Worker For Being A Sex Worker.”
It’s a very disappointing movie.
Hahn plays Rachel who hates everything including her amazingly fancy midcentury modern house that was for real located a few miles from the director of the movie, Jill Soloway‘s house. That’s Jill Soloway’s dining table and chairs used in the movie. Rachel is all bummed out because she has an amazingly beautiful house and a beautiful kid and a husband who is on his iPhone all the time and a therapist played by Jane Lynch who probably costs more than your entire monthly grocery bill. Rachel’s cute kid attends a fancy preschool filled with harpie sanctimommies who she doesn’t fit in with even though she gets crunk with these moms all the time instead of not getting involved with them and staying home and maybe watching Netflix.
Silver Lake problems, amirite?!
So when talking to one of her friends, her tall, blond, thin, rich friend, they decide to visit a strip club because when you are bored with your life and your husband is on his iPhone all the time because he develops apps for a living and you start to feel depressed because you aren’t boning enough, going to a strip club is a fabulous idea. You know, instead of maybe talking to your partner about your issues.
So they go to a strip club and Rachel gets a lap dance from a stripper named McKenna (I can just see the whole table discussion about what a good stripper name is for the charachter) and it obviously AFFECTS her in some deeply psychological way because she then starts trolling the ‘hood where the strip club is located under the guise of following a coffee truck who tweets their whereabouts on Twitter so she can possibly see McKenna again.
They meet and become secret coffee and cigarette pals and eventually Rachel RESCUES McKenna and brings her home to live in her previous nanny’s room because McKenna is obviously a fucked up sex worker and needs saving. You know this by the fact McKenna wears a bikini, and teaches Rachel and her thin, white, rich blond friend how to use a pool noodle as a stripper pole.
Plus, whenever anyone calls McKenna a prostitute Rachel corrects them and explains the term SEX WORKER to them. Because McKenna is a SEX WORKER Rachel goes with her on a date where she holds the hand of some old dude when he ejaculates as McKenna bones him. FOR MONEY. Because SEX WORKER. This scene obviously upsets Rachel so she goes home and her husband makes fun of her eye makeup.
Some other shit happens, they drink juice a lot, it’s probably like 12 dollar juice, and Rachel bones her husband and wakes up late to discover he has basically invited their kid’s entire preschool class over for brunch, and Rachel oversleeps, and comes downstairs wearing Silver Lake Mommy Bohemian Lounge Wear and her hair looks like bees slept in it. Which makes total sense, because if you were sleeping and you heard the entire neighborhood in your yard you would also stumble downstairs looking like ass and not bother putting on pants.
Rachel’s other friend, technically, her FRENEMY, this short, dark haired harpie JEWISH WOMAN (you know this because the fact she is Jewish is mentioned serval times in the movie) reminds Rachel and her other wealthy mommy friends that there is a wine party tonight and she asks McKenna who she thinks is a nanny and not a SEX WORKER to come over and babysit the children because the MEN are staying at Rachel’s house to play poker. Men play poker and women drink wine in Silver Lake. McKenna gets all super stoked and goes to the Dollar Tree and buys a fuckton of princess shit and play makeup because she gets to hang with little kids and Rachel tells her husband NOT SO FAST, McKenna is a SEX WORKER and NOT a nanny so she should stay home and not babysit. STAY HOME WITH THE MEN WHO ARE PLAYING POKER.
I am sure you can see where this is heading. Rachel goes to her lady wine party and gets crunk and talks a lot about her previous abortions and meanwhile her man and the other men get crunk and smoke some weed and McKenna coms downstairs and lap dances everyone and it’s all hugely uncomfy even when she slips off her dress but none of the dudes care because she is YOUNG AND HOT AND NAKED AND WRITHING and also bringing them cocktails. Until she takes the husband of the Jewish harpie FRENEMY into her nanny room and bones him and the frenemy catches them and gets all mad at her husband and McKenna announces WHAT DO YOU EXPECT I’M A SEX WORKER AND YOU KNEW I COULDN’T CONTROL MYSELF BONING EVERYONE.
End of movie.
No, some other shit happens and Rachel throws McKenna out and her husband and her have this giant fight in the driveway in front of their whole kid and the entire neighborhood because this is what you do in Silver Lake and the husband moves out and McKenna is still a SEX WORKER and Rachel and her husband start boning on the reg and she makes up with all the sanctimommies and the next day I rent Dallas Buyer’s Club which is a much better movie.
I mean, yeah, I still love Hahn and I’m glad Soloway made a movie about women and moms and housewives but this movie has no basis in reality, is deeply stigmatizing to women, moms and sex workers, and everyone looked really dirty in it.
Plus, it was just deeply unrealistic.
(Image: You Tube)
