Just so...so bad

Great Film overall

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Who would have thought that one of the performances of the year would be found in this obscure little indie that practically no one has heard of? Brian Geraghty, who had a small role in last year's "The Hurt Locker," plays Davy Mitchell, a struggling writer with an almost pathological case of social awkwardness. On a book tour through the middle of nowhere to promote a collection of short stories, he receives a random call from Nicole, a horny girl with a nice voice and a penchant for phone sex. Davy finds the fantasy girl on the other end of the line much easier to talk to than any of the real-live articles he comes across, and decides at the end to arrange a meeting with Nicole in person to see if the reality can match his expectations."Easier with Practice" is a fantastic movie with a very rich ending. There's a somewhat major plot twist, but the film doesn't build itself up around it, and the ending isn't so much about what happens between Davy and Nicole as about what happens to Davy. He learns some things about himself -- namely, that he's not the only lonely soul out there -- and we learn some things about him -- namely, that he's a kind and caring individual with the ability to handle complex emotions without taking his personal insecurities out on others.The final scene between Davy and Nicole is one of the best acted scenes I've seen in a movie this year.Grade: A

Davy, a twenty-eight year old white male author is on a road trip with his brother to promote his collection of short stories, when one night, in a motel, he gets a random phone call for sex and embarks on a series of phone call encounters with a voice called Nicole. Inexperienced, pronouncing quite often the word "embarassing", he seems unable to find his way with embodied, to put it that way, women. The phone calls persist, one way always, then cease after Davy gets furious about the unreal premise of such a "relationship." Things, days drag, until weeks later Nicole calls back, and they finally arrange a revelatory meeting.With a cinematic vocabulary proper for indie rock videos, and with a deceptively minimal approach, Alvarez may lure us into believing his film mode fits, even converts the story into a Raymond Carver one. There may be the random, fleeting and nostalgic empathy his stories exemplify, but here this roots into fully fledged individualization in the final confrontation.Aided with a sensitive cast and armed with Brian Geraghty's most tender and haunted and Eugene Byrd's rustling, miraculous performance, the film from indie isolation and generic alienation transforms masculine identity's vulnerability and sense of precarious confrontation into poignant human recognition. The final scene, impossibly delicate and difficult to handle, preserving a sense of secrecy that signifies shared affect, is an instant classic. A very moving, delightful film.(The opening credits are also pleasurable: tactile, from the snap-shot rhythm accompanying the soundtrack to the traveling of the camera revealing fragments of pulp fiction covers, as if tenderly mocking the human erotic interest, they are the most meaningful opening credits I have seen since Croneberg's "Spider" Rorschach opening.)

Davey is a lonely, 28-year-old socially inept "writer" trying to peddle his self-published book of short stories by criss-crossing New Mexico in a beat-up old station wagon with a mattress in the back and doing readings at independent book stories to audiences of about five people. His loutish younger brother is along for the ride and the chance to snare drunk chicks who think the boys are the reincarnation of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady.One night, when Davey is alone in their cheap motel room, the phone rings. One the other end is the sexy voice of Nicole, who says she is bored and wants to have phone sex with a dude. Any dude. Davey obliges. Thus is launched a relationship that has Davey totally spellbound. It's not all about sex. They share secrets, confide, console, etc. But only over the phone. He thinks they are soulmates. She insists on keeping her identify secret. Davey is desperate to meet her. His brother mocks him.This debut offering from writer-director Kyle Patrick Alvarez casts Brian Geraghty (The Hurt Locker) as Davey. He spends the whole movie in a state of confusion and yearning. He's a putz and knows it. But maybe there's hope. A lifeline has been tossed to him, but from whom? When the cat is deftly pulled out of the bag, you might fear Alvarez is going to go somewhere stupid with this. He doesn't. It plays out as it should. And, as with most good endings, a few additional possible scenes play out in your head.I look forward to seeing what young Alvarez does next.

As young, first time director, Kyle Patrick Alvarez, created quite a film, Easier with Practice, and is creating quite a stir. A passion of his since forever, was to direct and create movies. A lot of people do not know he is very musical also and brought great independent music to the film. He is very well read and a great writer. He really understands the entire process of movie making. Not every director has that gift. Everyone who worked with him on the film, have nothing but respect for Kyle Patrick. A 'true' Indie film made on a small budget. He casted the film perfectly. Although there is phone sex, the movie is really about an experience, a love story, a troubled soul. Based on a true story that was maybe 3 pages long, Kyle Patrick immediately knew upon reading it, he could make it into a full length movie. He is a Hollywood 'REFRESHER'! SOMEONE TO WATCH indeed.....