Girl Talk: Risqué dialogue doesn’t make ‘For a Good Time, Call…’ more exciting

It’s hard to imagine that a movie about phone sex could be boring. But that’s the case with For a Good Time, Call…, the new comedy about two women who run a successful phone sex business. A hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the movie uses the real life experiences of two former college roommates–actress Lauren Miller and writer Katie Anne Naylon–as its inspiration. The concept is a good one, but the execution is lacking and, despite some genuinely raunchy dialogue, the low-budget film is ultimately forgettable.

Forced to share a New York City apartment for financial reasons, Katie (Ari Graynor) and Lauren (Miller) couldn’t be more different. Katie is an extrovert who had a rep as a slut in college. Lauren is a good girl from Long Island who doesn’t even remove her bra during sex. After Lauren loses her gig as a personal assistant, she talks Katie into leaving the phone sex company for which she works and starting her own business. Lauren handles all the billing and is the brains of the operation and while Katie does the dirty work.

The two make a good team until the inevitable happens: they break up. While the two are not romantically involved, the film plays out like some kind of bromance as Katie and Lauren take any sign of independence as a break of in their business and friendship commitment. Justin Long does a fair job as Jesse, the matchmaking gay friend. Seth Rogen and Kevin Smith turn in memorable cameos as callers (Rogen plays a airplane captain and Smith is a cab driver). Graynor and Miller have pretty good chemistry, too. The film just doesn’t capitalize on its concept and stalls before the, umm, climax.