Zandalee: Shake You Naked and Eat You Alive
Zandalee surprised me. All I knew about it going in was that it’s described as an “erotic thriller/romantic tragedy.” Which, having seen it, is pretty accurate. Fair warning, this movie is fucking dark, and I’m gonna talk about that a bit. If you don’t feel comfortable reading about stuff like rape, suicide, or abuse, you might wanna skip this one.
Judge Reinhold plays Thierry Martin, a former poet and current communication writer going through writer’s block after the death of his father. Zandalee, his wife (played by Erika Anderson), is feeling unfulfilled and frustrated at her husbands lack of interest in life, as well as his lack of interest in her. Then Nicolas fuckin’ Cage shows up as an old artist buddy of Thierry’s and their lives get flipped on their little Cajun heads.
Cage immediately starts lusting after Zandalee, and soon enough, the two begin an affair. Zandalee becomes more estranged from Thierry, who begins to notice her absences and becomes increasingly withdrawn and hostile. Zandalee starts regretting the affair and tries to end things with Cage, who rapes her in a church. She asks Thierry if they can leave together and try to start again in the bayou, and he agrees.
On their trek into the bayou, Cage shows up uninvited, and Thierry pulls out a gun. As they’re speeding around on a boat, Thierry falls out and allows himself to drown, biting Cage when he tries to save him. Back in New Orleans, Cage throws himself into his drug addiction, becoming further indebted to local mobsters. As a mobster tries to shoot Cage for his debts, Zandalee jumps in front of the gun, allowing herself to be shot. Cage cries and carries her lifeless body to a church. Fin.
This movie is SO melodramatic and raunchy and wildly and dangerously passionate and I kind of love everything about it for that. Zandalee is a fresh character whose infidelities are not portrayed as inherently wrong, but as a confused reaction to the listlessness of her husband, and Erika Anderson does a stellar job. Reinhold plays a perfect suffering poet who knows that they have to give up their art to ever make any money, and Cage plays a perfect brooding sex-fiend who claims to only care about the art but seems to be just as lost and lonely as anybody else.
There is a fascinating feeling to this story and the vibrant setting of New Orleans. Reinhold’s character seems to be slowly moving away from the artist’s dream while Cage’s character is fully immersed in it; you end up with this kind of “edge of Bohemia” feel through Zandalee where she isn’t sure to follow her love or her passion.
In many ways, this is a pure character drama. There isn’t a lot of symbolism (besides some religious stuff here and there), but there is constant and vivid character development and plot progression. Every emotion, no matter how small, is immediately thrown on the table or balled up and thrown into the corner. And as such, this is a perfect vehicle for Cage. Cage’s character is a sleazy, violent, abusive, drug-addled piece of shit who is a complete slave to his emotions. Cage plays him explosively and violently, and it works perfectly in that you really do despise the character, but you understand that he has more emotions than he is capable of dealing with.
Cage’s meltdown toward the end might seem ridiculous or funny out of context, but within the context of the movie, it’s actually a pretty valid portrayal of how such a character would react in that situation (even though it’s still pretty funny). He’s a man who’s been pushed to and past his breaking point by the fallout of his own actions, and Cage captures that frustration in a pretty unsettling way.
I also have to say that I admire how this movie dealt with some of the darker topics. Erika Anderson’s Zandalee is a strong, fully-developed character who has flaws and doesn’t know exactly how to deal with them appropriately. Cage’s character is not portrayed as a “hero” or even as an “anti-hero,” but as a broken, cruel, violent husk of a man who is desperately trying to latch on to something stable and dragging everybody down with him. Reinhold’s character is sympathetic, but dangerously lost and too proud to admit when he’s wrong. There’s a lot going on in this movie, and it gave me more to think about than I was expecting.
We also hit a good, tight seven Cagemarks with this movie.
Cage is shirtless in several scenes.
Cage doesn’t shave. He’s got a funny little moustache the entire time. (I feel like I might swap this out or make it interchangeable with leather jackets)
Okay, not only do we get some solid Cage Screams, we get an honest to god, fully erotic, fully nude Cagegasm. I was not expecting this at all, but oh boy, was it ever a thing.
We definitely get some over-acting with Cage’s full-on meltdown at the end.
We get underacting any time Cage delivers a creepy sex line. Here’s a weird one: “Without creativity, without life, you are unable to go straight up the Devil’s asshole, look him in the face, and live.” Totally straight faced.
Weird dialogue? See the above line about the Devil’s poop chute.
Cage doesn’t really describe violence in this movie. He describes sex a lot. And you know, I’m actually gonna count that because it’s pretty gross. Eight Cagemarks.
Cage gets a good jog on a few times.
Cage fucks. We see a bit of his butt.
Really, Zandalee was more interesting than I thought it would be, and I’m kind of surprised it hooked me the way it did. It’s definitely not a great film, but it’s tight. There’s no fancy cinematography, there aren’t many creative shots, but the dialogue is well-written and well-paced, and the whole cast does a great job, particularly Cage and Anderson. I’ve done erotic writing for fun and money, and honestly, this movie captures a lot of those guilty pleasures and flaunts them shamelessly.
May Steve Buscemi always show up to take your garbage and make a lewd remark about how good he is at fucking (oh yeah Steve Buscemi’s in this),
Nat
