The archives here at Shared Darkness are in desperate need of being expanded, but a master plan of sorts is being delayed a bit while a laptop is repaired over the next few weeks. Still, there’s this DVD review blast from the past (not to be confused with Diane Keaton’s 2006 film of the same name), originally published in 2001 in a now-defunct Los Angeles weekly:

Multi-hyphenate Kevin Di Novis’ psychosexual drama bills itself as a “dark comedy of gender manipulation,” but that’s advertising a description it doesn’t completely earn. Festival-lauded (the film snagged prizes at Slamdance, and the official Underground gatherings in both New York and Chicago), Surrender Dorothy certainly has the off-kilter protagonist, wild narrative arc and shocking ending of a searing manifesto on psychosexual identity. It also posesses a certain lilting, collegial art rock ethos (several montages pad out the 87-minute running time), but its basic plotting is rather calamitous, with false drama (chiefly the narrative crutch of heroin use, but also specifically a brawl with some club punks and a faux-menacing drug dealer) lending the movie a feeling of contrivance rather than the downward-spiraling urgency no doubt intended.

Trevor (Peter Pryor, a sort of more menacing iteration of Kid in the Hall Kevin McDonald) is a reclusive restaurant busboy who we’re told repeatedly can’t make a connection with a female — never mind the fact that he can’t seem to make a connection with anyone. Trevor spends a good deal of time getting pushed around at work and masturbating in the bathroom with a pair of scissors jammed up to his nose. (Ummm, yeah…) Enter tinny-voiced smack addict Lahn (Di Novis), a moocher drifting through life and in need of a place to stay. Trevor lets Lahn move in with him, but their relationship soon degenerates into a loose jailer/captor scenario, with Trevor working out various interpersonal issues — and possibly subjugated homosexual urges — in increasingly distubring fashions.

The stark black-and-white cinematography of Jonathan Kovel is something to be admired here; it’s a lot more difficult than people realize to achieve this effect, especially on a budget. Yet overall Surrender Dorothy feels like a student short run amok — too much artifice and affect, not enough studied and skillful manipulation of reality. The DVD’s supplemental features include chapter selection, an audio commentary track with Di Novisa and the film’s producer, detailed production notes, cast and crew biographies and picture galleries. To order the film via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) C+ (Disc)