About the Story
Mini Drogues (Nikki Reed) is a clever and adventurous high school senior who is bored with her life. Mini prizes her “unique experiences” (she calls them “firsts”). For excitement, and to add to her list of firsts, Mini decides to try being a call girl. Her first client, however, has a guilty conscience and can’t carry through with the act, which disappoints Mini. Her second client is decidedly more exciting: her stepfather Martin (Alec Baldwin). Martin is initially shocked when he learns of her identity (he initially blindfolded himself during intercourse per Mini’s request), but soon a torrid love affair blossoms between the two.
In order to be together, Mini and Martin concoct a plan to have Mini’s mother Diane (Carrie-Anne Moss) declared insane. When their plan fails, Mini convinces Martin to murder Diane, despite his initial resistance to the idea. They attempt to make it appear that Diane committed suicide, but they soon attract the attention of a detective (Luke Wilson) who believes that Mini and Martin killed her.
A nosy neighbor, Mike (Jeff Goldblum), is sexually obsessed with Mini, and when Martin learns that Mini had gone to Mike’s house and had received sexual pictures from him, he and Mike get into a fight. Mini arrives to find Martin standing over the neighbor, ready to beat him into unconsciousness, and when the police arrive they arrest Martin.
Mini visits Martin in jail and admits that the sexual pictures sent were actually from her in order to get Martin to think that the neighbor sent them. She also reveals that she assumed the police would eventually believe he killed Diane (since he was the more likely perpetrator). Mini, therefore, ends up getting away with murder, and inherits her mother’s fortune.
The film ends with Mini giving a valedictorian speech, even though she is a C student; the school gave her straight A’s out of sympathy for her mother’s death. She offers advice to the graduating class about how to live a good life, that perversely alludes to her crimes without making her look too suspicious.
Film Review for Mini’s First Time
Watching Alec Baldwin stick his 48-year-old tongue in Nikki Reed’s 18-year-old mouth may explain why a gifted actor wasted his time on this trash, but it can’t account for why reliable performers like Jeff Goldblum, Carrie-Anne Moss and Luke Wilson also went along for such a dead-end ride. Written by Nick Guthe, making an inauspicious debut as a director, this strenuously satiric neo-noir centers on yet another poor little rich girl from Los Angeles (county, not city) who tends to her festering inner wounds by becoming one of the region’s children of the damned.
Most entitled SoCal spawn ease the pain by whipping the sales help unconscious with platinum credit cards. Mini, by contrast, spins a lethal web with thread borrowed from film noir and recycled through the trash-television compactor. Accompanied by an on-again, off-again voice-over that is more “Desperate Housewives” than “Double Indemnity,” she embarks on her voyage to hell at an escort agency, where her first client, surprise, turns out to be dear old Stepdad (Mr. Baldwin). As Mom (Ms. Moss) rehearses scenes from “Valley of the Dolls,” washing fistfuls of pills down with quarts of vodka, Mini sinks her teeth and French tips in deeper, going from naughty to worse as the film goes from implausible to risible.
“Mini’s First Time” is delectably vulgar for 20 minutes or so, almost too bad to be true, but because it lacks the demented conviction of real camp, the glint of madness that keeps a bauble like “Valley of the Dolls” afloat, it soon loses its cheap-thrills appeal. The actors do their best to keep us awake, though it’s clear from the performances, which veer between the oversized (Ms. Moss) and the underbaked (Mr. Wilson), that Mr. Guthe didn’t offer any useful guidance. This doesn’t pose a problem for a pro like Mr. Baldwin, but it’s bad news for an actress as untested as Ms. Reed, who for all her pretty and poisonous pouting holds neither the screen nor our interest, even with the camera nosing up her skirt.
Mini’s First Time (2006)
Directed by: Nick Guthe
Starring: Alec Baldwin, Nikki Reed, Luke Wilson, Carrie-Anne Moss, Rick Fox, Svetlana Metkina, Jeff Goldblum, Sprague Grayden, Artie Baxter, David Shatraw, Jean St. James
Screenplay by: Nick Guthe
Production Design by: Linda Burton
Cinematography by: Dan Stoloff
Film Editing by: Alan Cody, Michael Ruscio
Costume Design by: Johanna Argan
Set Decoration by: Ellen Brill
Music by: Cato
MPAA Rating: R for strong sexual content, language, drug use and a scene of violence.
Distributed by: First Independent Pictures
Release Date: July 14, 2006
Visits: 237
