Starring: Robert Więckiewicz, Adam Woronowicz
Directed by: Marek Koterski
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
In 1960 Dino Risi directed the Italian cult comedy The Easy Life (1960), which centres on a tragicomic road trip taken by two impenitent rogues across their country. With Baby są jakieś inne (Man, Chicks Are Just Different) Marek Koterski has attempted to pen a Polish movie in the same spirit as Risi’s examination of the Italian economic miracle.
Koterski, who proved his mastery of the intimate, black comedy with Dzień świra (The Day of the Wacko) in 2002, narrows his focus to the relationships between men and women in a rapidly changing nation. He succeeds in putting entertaining dialogue in the mouths of the two leads, Więckiewicz and Woronowicz, who rarely leave the car throughout the movie. The two relentlessly pour out complaints about the habits of women, reproaching, among other things, the supposed female inability to understand right-of- way behind the wheel and their propensity to use credit cards for transactions involving trifling sums.
The result is a movie that says more about men’s emotional weakness than it does about the mindset of women. It’s hard to see a potential export market for Man, Chicks Are Just Different – a far better introduction to Koterski’s work can be found in The Day of the Wacko.
Originally published by The Krakow Post on December 15, 2011