Bleak Week at the Sie: Looking for Mr. Goodbar

Part of the Bleak Week series, joing guest host Guadaupe for this controversial film and sure to be interesting discourse around it.

There’s one crucial thing that “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” doesn’t make clear: Just because you find Mr. Goodbar doesn’t necessarily mean you were looking for him. The heroine of Judith Rossner’s bestseller was looking. Theresa was turned on to a particular flavor of self-destructive sexual experience, one involving possible danger to herself, and she played a role in bringing about her own death.
In Richard Brooks’s film version, that masochistic impulse isn’t considered as openly. He gives us a Theresa who drinks too much, sleeps around too much, and takes too many drugs — but she seems more of a hedonist than a masochist. She’s looking for a combination of good times, good sex, and a father figure, for psychological reasons the movie makes all too abundantly clear. But she isn’t looking for danger, mistreatment, or death. Maybe Brooks thought audiences would find Rossner’s masochistic heroine too hard to understand. He has rewritten the story, in any event, into a cautionary lesson: Promiscuous young women who frequent pick-up bars and go home with strangers are likely to get into trouble. (Roger Ebert)

Tickets available online and at the box office
https://www.denverfilm.org/sie-filmcenter/

Free parking in the structure above the theater

Guadalupe will lead the charge to Bruz after for light snacks and discussion.