Steven Soderbergh’s new Magic Mike, which looks at the world of male exotic dancers, isn’t quite the exuberant ladies’ night out that’s been promised. It’s got bronzed skin and sparkly g-strings galore, but after a fizzy, light-hearted first half, the mood gets almost glum. Soderbergh gives us what we came for, but his primary interest, for better or worse, isn’t titillation. He’s drawn to the everyday grind of stripping: the financial realities, the prep work, the off-stage camaraderie and competitiveness, the fractured personal relationships. As somebody who desperately wants American movies to be more than mindless escapism, I found the level of observational detail here both engaging and heartening. But as a big ol’ poof looking for a raunchy good time, I wished Soderbergh could’ve stayed “real” without letting all the fun drain out. I mean, this is a movie about male strippers, not migrant labourers.
But for a good stretch, Soderbergh keeps things appropriately buoyant, and the opening moments tease our expectations brilliantly. Dallas (Matthew McConaughey), the terrifyingly self-possessed owner-proprietor of a Tampa nightclub called Xquisite, stands on a lit stage like a sexy carnival barker, riling us up for the voyeuristic revelries to come. Then, just as the music swells for the first number, Soderbergh cuts to black, the effect like coitus interruptus. (The audience I saw the movie with — mostly women and gay men — cried out in animal frustration.) Seconds later, however, there’s a new sight before us: the title character, played by Channing Tatum, rising from bed at home, his naked backside filling the screen. Cue shrieking. Soderbergh’s putting us on notice here: he’ll be supplying the goods, just not always in ways we expect.
Loosely based on the 32-year-old Tatum’s own teenage experiences as an exotic dancer (the screenplay is by his friend and business partner, Reid Carolin), Magic Mike is agreeably rambling. The plot, such as it is, concerns Mike’s friendship with the new kid at the club, Adam (Alex Pettyfer), and his half-flirty, half-antagonistic relationship with Adam’s disapproving older sister, Brooke (Cody Horn). But the best material is the casual vignettes: Mike and Alex sneakily drumming up business at a club down the street; the Xquisite crew backstage, sewing up torn thongs and smearing on depilatory creams; Mike attempting to get a bank loan from a previous customer; Dallas demonstrating the art of the pelvic thrust; etc. This laid-back, episodic approach is somewhat reminiscent of all those “milieu” films of the late ’70s and early ’80s: The Gambler, Stay Hungry, Saturday Night Fever, Urban Cowboy. (Soderbergh even opens the film with the old red and black Warner Communications logo.) But like so many of those films, Magic Mike succumbs to third-act heaviness, adding worked-up conflict under the assumption we need some sort of big, dramatic finish.
Even before that, the fizz has begun to go flat. Initially, Soderbergh puts real care into the sweaty dance numbers, giving us complete routines and shooting wide so we can see all the moves (and skin). But he gradually loses interest, turning the later onstage sequences into tossed-off montages. It’s probably not a coincidence that the energy flags just when the el blando narrative conflicts begin to take over. Inevitably, Alex slides into drug addiction and crime, and Mike’s relationship with Brooke begins to crumble. This is doubly unfortunate, as Alex and Brooke are the two most uninteresting people in the movie. Pettyfer isn’t bad, exactly, but he seems to possess no personality whatsoever. Horn is better, but her voice is rather monotone, and she’s saddled with the no-fun moral authority role. Every time she’s onscreen, she has to subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) criticize Mike’s life and career, and by the finale, all of her warnings have come true.
What is it with these “milieu” movies always having to condemn the lifestyles they so eagerly depict? Is stripping really so terrible? I would say this is Hollywood’s puritanical streak rearing it’s head, but the answer may be even simpler. More likely, the problem is garden-variety lack of imagination. When all you’ve got is a subject and no conflict, the easiest way to stir up drama is to make the subject the source of the conflict. Thus, Jimmy Caan’s predilection for gambling destroys his life, while Travolta’s love of disco leads to desolation and the death of a friend. In Magic Mike, the title character isn’t destroyed by his job, but it’s clear he needs to move on from it to become whole. Yet Tatum’s performance belies this little thesis. He’s so relaxed and charming here, and so recognizably sane, that it’s impossible to feel he’s made the wrong choices or mucked up his life. And as the only member of the cast and crew with stripping experience, Tatum seems aware of an irony lost on everyone else: whether you’re stripping in Tampa or making millions in Hollywood, it’s all showbiz, and the only real shame is in taking yourself too seriously.
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Scott MacDonald writes about cinema for Toronto Standard.
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