Editorial Review: Fresh, funny and racy, Spread is a look at the trials and tribulations of sleeping your way to a life of privilege in Los Angeles. Nikki (Ashton Kutcher) is a fun-loving, freeloading hipster who understands his greatest assets are his looks and sexual prowess. His latest conquest, Samantha (Anne Heche), a stunning middle-aged lawyer, gives Nikki more than he’s ever had before. But when Heather (Margarita Levieva), a gorgeous waitress playing the same game, catches his eye, their lifestyles force a choice between love and money. Nikki has to decide whether he can live on his own once and for all in the hopes of finding something real.
Spread Blu-ray™ exclusives: • Picture-In-Picture - Urban Sprawl: Los Angeles In SPREAD • Bonus Disc with digital copy of the film
Description of Spread [Blu-ray]: Director David Mackenzie trades the Scottish Highlands for the Hollywood Hills in this darkly comic fable about a male hustler. While Julia Roberts famously portrayed a hooker with a heart of gold, Nikki (producer Ashton Kutcher) suffers from Tin Man Syndrome: he doesn't seem to have a heart at all. As he boasts in his opening narration, "I don't wanna be arrogant here, but I'm an incredibly attractive man." (He has a point, but those suspenders have gotta go.) With his finances in disarray, he sets his sights on Samantha (Anne Heche), a high-powered attorney with an amazing abode overlooking Los Angeles. For such a sophisticated woman, she's surprisingly quick to fall for his patter. Aside from attending to her physical needs, Nikki cooks, runs errands, and makes himself so indispensable he gains the use of her Amex and Mercedes. Then he meets the more age-appropriate Heather (Margarita Levieva), who doesn't find his talk quite so cute, but she gets him in a way Sam doesn't because she's a player, too. Through Heather, Nikki finds his heart, but a real relationship proves far more challenging than a fake one. If the characters in Mackenzie's first American feature, much like the gang on TV's Gossip Girl, are too vain to inspire much sympathy, they're still fun to watch. Kutcher's ladies' man may not be as iconic as the studs in Midnight Cowboy and American Gigolo, but then Mackenzie (Young Adam, Mister Foe) isn't going for tears or fears, but rather for escapism with a sexy, slightly cynical edge. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Stills from Spread (Click for larger image)
Spread [Blu-ray] Reviews: Has potential but lacks depth 2009-11-24 - "Spread" is basically a grifter movie with Ashton Kutcher playing (rather credibly I might add) Nikki, an over-confident hustler who lacks both a home and a car, and thus resorts to preying on older, successful (yet attractive) women. One of these is Anne Heche, who plays a successful attorney, Samantha, and finding Nikki's brash overtures rather charming, takes him home to her posh pad in the Hollywood Hills. Both Samantha and Nikki have hot sex all over Sam's luxurious property, and the sex scenes are pretty explicit and creative. Nikki should be happy in this arrangement, yet the viewer senses Nikki's restlessness. Instead of cementing the 'deal', Nikki inexplicably resorts to reckless acts, like having sex with another woman in Sam's bed whilst he thinks she's out of town...well, the Nikki-Samantha coupling continues, even as Nikki finds himself increasingly attracted to a waitress, Heather (Margarita Levieva) who is also hustling for money and stuff.
This is where the movie sort of veers off tangent and weakens - I found Anne Heche to be an interesting character. She is outwardly confident and controlling in the relationship with Nikki, but then she reveals her own set of insecurities by some of her actions. Unfortunately, when Heather comes into the picture, Heche's Samantha recedes into the background. The Nikki-Heather relationship doesn't altogether add up - Heather reveals certain character deficits which makes one wonder why Nikki is so smitten with her (empathy perhaps?). There are other facets of their relationship that is presented as is with no credible explanation. Ultimately, it's this lack on character development and in-depth exploration that lets this movie down, though it still makes for an interesting and engaging viewing experience.
Spread - Anchor Bay Entertainment 2009-11-23 - The very likable Ashton Kutcher hasn't exactly had a successful movie career that matches his popularity, which appears to be guided towards romantic comedies, which appear these days to be a kiss of death in tinseltown. So it was a surprise - quite a surprise, I think - to see him starring in a drama. And I'm happy to say that he succeeded, with the penetrating and sincere "Spread." This was quite a risk he took, and I believe that it paid off.
The film documents the life of one of the many young players in Hollywood, who make a living in dating and moving in with attractive, wealthy women. In this case, the player is Nikky (Kutcher), an unemployed, homeless, and, as he says, "unreliable" young man, who knows that he is attractive to women, and also knows how to make them fall for him. One of them is Samantha (Anne Heche), whom he meets at a club and immediately goes to live with her, taking advantage of her beauty and her money, which he pays with incredible amounts of sex. However, he also meets Heather (Margarita Levieva), and his world is turned upside down. Nikki finally meets his match and, unbeknown to him, Heather will determine his future.
"Spread" was directed by David Mackenzie, who also helmed "Young Adam" (2003), and who definitely can inject great eroticism in his movies. "Spread" is no exception, and the sex scenes are rough and tasty, with Heche, always delightful to watch, providing most of them with Kutcher, who will surprise the ladies. The film shows us part of what goes on in Hollywood on a daily basis, in which the parties doesn't always have a happy ending. The DVD also features making-of and behind the scenes mini-documentaries, and "The World According to Nikki," in which Kutcher talks about the players' rules of attraction. (USA, 2009, color, 97 min plus additional material)
Reviewed by Eric Gonzalez on November 23, 2009 for [...]
You won't be young and handsome forever... 2009-11-19 - I don't know why...not a big Ashton Kutcher fan..in fact I think he is a fluke. Though I have to admit...I've never seem him give a bad performance...and DUDE WHERE'S MY CAR is still one of my favorite films to laugh till I cry over.
SPREAD is another re-telling of the broken dreams of those who move to LA or HOLLYWOOD to make it big and simply end up broke and on the streets...doing what ever they can to survive, another film that stands out with this theme is "WHERE THE DAY TAKES YOU"
Ashton Kutcher plays a penniless Lothario who seduces wealthy women to become a "kept" man. The character he plays is vacuous, egomaniac, and narcissistic,and Ashton knocks it out of the park. SPREAD at its very best is unpredictable. Though the themes and some of the characters may seem familiar the direction they take, and the development of them is refreshingly original. Ann Heitch, another Hollywood insider I don't care for is simply amazing in the role of an exceedingly rich bachelorette who keeps the company of Kutcher's character with no allusions as to the relationship.
SPREAD is a character study of youth, ambition, and empathy, growing old and success or the lack there of....and how these things can grow with you, or you can loose them. Well acted by all of the cast members SPREAD was a pleasant surprise..and I'm glad I took the time to check it out...it's not suited for all audiences as it does have a lot of adult subject matter in it, but none of it gratuitous and all works exceptionally well in this well made well told story of Dreams, and awakenings.
No Cinderella story, this 2009-11-19 - This movie is a sort of Americanized version of last year's French film "Priceless", an Audrey Tautou vehicle. Both films are about young hustlers, a gigolo and a trophy mistress, who fall for each other in the course of helping each other ply their trades.
You'd expect the French version to be more grim, realistic, and explicit than the American film, which you'd expect to be given a hollywood happy ending. You'd be exactly wrong. In reality, it's the French version that's less realistic and more hollywoodized, and the American version that's grim, overly explicit and depressing. But they're both interesting and fun in their own ways. Ashton Kutcher, who obviously has a thing for successful older women, was born to play this role, and he plays it to perfection. Well worth a look.
Mixed Feelings 2009-11-16 - This was a good film which could have been a great one if it had just been intellectually deeper. As the narrator and main character, Nikki (Ashton Kutcher) points out, there are thousands of people who arrive in Hollywood every day looking for the elusive "rock star-treatment lifestyle." Nikki choses to pursue his dream by using rich (albeit still attractive) women who will support him in exchange for a willing sexual partner (and perhaps the chance to feel young again).
While the film does a good job of showing how someone like Nikki could snare women who have their own dreams of caring for (and dominating) a young player, nothing explains the restlessness and the irrational decisions that Nikki makes once he has clearly snared the blue-blood attorney played beautifully by Anne Heche. Does he feel trapped in the relationship? Does he resent his benefactor? Is he simply easily bored? Does he miss the "comfort of being sad" as Kurt Cobain so elegantly once put it? The viewer is left to wonder ...with absolutely no clues because of holes in the script.
Thus, the film becomes both a cautionary tale with no discernible message and, for that reason, somewhat unsatisfying film despite being very interesting to watch.
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