Word: wonderful
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Inserts is formally a one-act play. But unlike most works of that genre Inserts is open-ended, leaving a lot of questions unanswered and intimations unexplained. The demise of The Boy Wonder is the major mystery of the film; no explanation is ever given for his peculiarly pathetic state of affairs. Equally musterious is Harlene (Veronica Cartwright), a junkie porno queen who ODs during The Boy Wonder's filming session and who Byrum suggests was once a star in "real films...
Just when answers seem forthcoming, they are neatly sidestepped. When Cathy Cake (Jessica Harper), the seductive and immorally ambitious, aspiring starlet confronts The Boy Wonder, demanding to know why he has been reduced to such a pitiful ghost of his former self, he glibly replies that he is not scared of anything. When Miss Cake presses for an answer, an explanation is anticipated. But instead of pouring out his story, The Boy Wonder breaks down in tears and the mystery remains. Given Byrum's weakness for cliches, perhaps it is better that he avoids giving an overt answer. Such...
THERE ARE MOMENTS when Inserts seems to aspire to tragedy and others when it verges on absurdist farce. The broadly farcical sequences lighten what might otherwise be a plodding melodrama and heighten the pathos of The Boy Wonder's plight. A contrast is effected between The Boy Wonder's intelligence and dedication to cinematic art, and the foolish self-serving idiocy of the world around him. At one point, Stephen Davies as Rex, dubbed the Wonder Dog, an empty-headed young undertaker with visions of film stardom who moonlights as porno stud, proposes a perverse idea for flaunting his masculinity...
Primarily, Inserts revolves around the character of The Boy Wonder, and as The Boy Wonder, Dreyfuss succeeds remarkably given his limitations as an actor. Dreyfuss' performance is, of necessity, a studied one. Dreyfuss is not an actor who commands the screen, lacking the presence of a Brando, a Newman, or even a DeNiro. He does not have that brooding presence that would be more suitable for the part, but his performance as The Boy Wonder is one of his best. Generally, he manages to avoid the idiosyncratic gestures--the nervous cackling laughter and the sardonic grin--that even at twenty...
...DOMINANT theme of Inserts is sex and sexual inadequacy as a metaphor for the inability to cope with life in general. The big joke during the film is that The Boy Wonder is sexually impotent: "You couldn't get his rope to rise with a magic flute." The Boy Wonder's manic need to make films is a form of sexual displacement--perhaps it is the need for gratification that drives him to make "five-and-dime films" when he has been forced from "real films." In a confrontation with Cathy Cake he is made to face the full reality...