Rumor has it: Avoid this movie

From the start, Gossip is one long mean-spirited tale with callous characters and a fumbling plot.

By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 21, 2000

[Photo: Warner Bros.] A trio of college students, James Marsden, left, as Derrick, Norman Reedus as Travis and Lena Headey as Cathy, cook up a rumor as a sociological experiment.

You can't believe any good rumors heard about Gossip, or enjoy half of anything you see. Gossip is ugly, mean-spirited and doesn't benefit anyone, especially at today's ticket prices.

This is an annoying film beginning with its arty, opening shot of college students in a library. Pay attention, because you will never see anyone pretending to study again. College is one long happy hour for unkempt bohemians and spoiled brats living well beyond collegiate means. If Mommy and Daddy are paying for all this hedonism, they aren't checking grades.

Three roommates have a platonic relationship in a loft costing a fortune in New York. Cathy (Lena Headey) is a conscientious student, Travis (Norman Reedus) is the artistic nerd and Derrick (James Marsden) is the face-man footing the bill. They possess that ironic arrogance passing for youthful cool these days. Self-absorption soon gets them in trouble.

After a mass communications class discussion of gossip, the trio decide to create a case study of their own. They spread a false rumor that virginal rich girl Naomi (Kate Hudson) and her boyfriend Beau (Joshua Jackson) had sex during a party. The hypothesis is that a simple tryst will be twisted by gossip into a kinky conversation piece.

Rumors grow nastier than that. The story gets mangled into a tale of date rape that even the victim starts to believe. Gossip is the second movie in six months hinging on drunken, forced sex, as unsavory and exploitative of the subject as Body Shots last year. Neither had worthwhile intent. Both films fumble for a dramatic crutch to make the movie run a respectable 90 minutes.

The dynamics of rumor make a few abrupt plot shifts bearable. Screenwriters Gregory Poirier and Theresa Rebeck do some neat layering of lies spread in the past and present, on campus and back home, to muddle the question of guilt. Those are just spasms of creativity. Most of the movie is just Cruel Intentions on a scholarship, with callous characters and a cynical approach to human nature.

Coincidences and hidden agendas pile up until nobody, not even the alleged rape victim, has our sympathies. Gossip tosses red herrings like a fishmonger, then tries to pass them off as an incredibly complex sting operation. How clever. Not really.

Let's try our own experiment. Let's spread a rumor that studio filmmakers are starting to show respect for young people. They will be depicted as something other than oversexed, profane, intoxicated egocentrics with nothing better to do than cause other people pain and shrug it off. Movies like Gossip will never be made again.

At least, that's what I heard.

Gossip

• Grade: F
• Director: Davis Guggenheim
• Cast: James Marsden, Lena Headey, Norman Reedus, Kate Hudson, Eric Bogosian, Edward James Olmos
• Screenplay: Gregory Poirier, Theresa Rebeck
• Rating: R; sexual situations, profanity, violence
• Running time: 90 min.