For a year or two on this blog, I did monthly movie previews. I’d look for all the movies coming to theaters that I could find, big or small, in the next month. I’d watch the trailers for them and turn that into a post about what I was most and least looking forward to seeing. It was my way of building up my excitement for the big movies coming. More importantly, it helped me discover a lot of movies it would’ve taken me years to find out about if ever. It took too much time and I could never find a proper structure for it. Eventually, I stopped doing it, but there’s a group of movies from then that pop up in my queue from time to time that I found because of that. MDMA is one of them. The entire thought process on this was that I remembered Annie Q. from her episodes of The Leftovers and a drug underworld story could be fun.
Of course, over the years my system of movie discovery has improved. I have a list of podcasters, sites, and awards I can follow to find quality smaller films. I’ve noticed something. These trailer dives I did were great for something like Support the Girls. I saw that trailer and was intrigued. I told myself it’s probably not as good as the trailer made it seem. Then, at the end of the year, when my sources start mentioning it as being really good, I have the confirmation that it actually is good yet maintain a sense of discovery, since I found the trailer before I heard anything else. I have a weird sense of ownership of that movie which helped me appreciate it even more. On the other hand, if I never hear about the movie again after being intrigued by the trailer, there’s probably a reason for it. These small movies all go through the festivals. If I found it on a list of upcoming movies on IMDB, other people did too. There’s probably a reason MDMA has under 1000 ratings on IMDB after 5 years. I should get better at knowing when to remove these movies from the queue.
MDMA isn’t great. It’s the kind of bad where everything is a bit-to-considerably below average, which snowballs into something that’s worse than any individual part. It’s based on a true story, but it doesn’t need to be. The story is pretty generic, and the fact that it answers to a real person defangs it. Think about it. Angie (Annie Q.) is a fundamentally good person. She’s struggling to get by at college and only makes MDMA to afford tuition. She points out that it’s not technically illegal to make it. Meanwhile, she’s the nicest person on Earth. Her rich roommate loves her. The nice Asian boy who likes her never makes it awkward by actually trying to date her, but his family loves her anyway. She is a Big Sister and saves her Little Sister from her crack-addicted mother. That ultimately leads her to a career in child services, I guess. Boo to all of that….
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…correction, first time writer-director Annie Wang is who Angie is based on. Wang is writing about her own experiences. That pushed this into straight-up self-aggrandizement. That explains a lot; why so many edges were sanded down for Angie but sharpened for others. Wang lived this, so I understand why she would think this story is interesting enough for a movie. On its own, it’s not though. Not without far more introspection or a better filmmaker at the helm. Wang directs and writes this like a vanity project. It doesn’t surprise me that she has 0 other credits on IMDB. I’m happy to shift all of the problems onto her.
I really don’t know how to rate the acting in this. No one elevates the material. I root for Annie Q. because I root for anyone from The Leftovers. It does occur to me now that she wasn’t asked to do that much on that show either. The role in MDMA requires someone who seems tough enough to get into the drug underworld and is even steely enough to battle in there for a while. Long enough to get in over her head. Annie Q. doesn’t sell that well. I can’t see her getting in a bar fight or being savvy enough to negotiate herself out of a tight situation. She also doesn’t sell the panic once she realizes she’s lost control. The rest of the cast isn’t any better. Francesca Eastwood I only know because of her famous last name, and let’s just say it’s telling when someone with so much opportunity to break into the business has trouble finding roles bigger than this one.
I often comment on how I think it’s amazing any movie can get completed. It’s a herculean task. That’s why I do everything I can to not shit on a movie. I definitely don’t relish a bad Reaction. Watching a movie like MDMA though is a good reminder that anyone really can make a professional looking movie with some money. A film budget like MDMA’s is no doubt life-changing money in most other circumstances. However, once that’s secured, anyone can hire a couple moderately familiar actors (Hi, Clueless’ Elisa Donovan), get a journeyman film crew, and make a movie that’s somewhat watchable. It’s nothing special. MDMA isn’t an unwatchable piece of trash. It’s more of a disinterested sigh. Weak script, that feels like it was written after watching Blow and Boogie Nights too many times. Nothing engaging in the filmmaking or performances. Just not a good movie.
Verdict: Strongly Don’t Recommend
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