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IN FABRIC – Review by MaryAnn Johanson

MaryAnn Johanson 0 Comments , ,
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It’s Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, except the jeans are a dress (though it still magically fits everyone who wears it, women and — yes — men alike) and the dress is murderous, because LOLsob consumerism is killing us, or something.

I’d say it was “clear” that that was the “message” of the empty exhausting nonsense that is In Fabric, but that isn’t clear at all. Settling on that theme is merely the result of desperately trying to extract some meaning from this oh-so arthouse, infuriatingly wanky retro exercise in style at the expense of all substance.

It’s a vaguely late-70s, early-80s suburban London world we land in here, as 50something divorcée Sheila (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, goddess, and the best thing here) acquires a rather lovely red dress in the post-Christmas department-store sales for a date with someone she has connected with via a newspaper lonely-hearts ad. The dress marks her with a rash and causes other insidious damage, like a washing machine that “goes bananas” when she tries to launder it. Later with come further savagery and atrocity. Continue reading…

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MaryAnn Johanson

MaryAnn Johanson is a freelance writer on film, TV, DVD, and pop culture from New York City and now based in London. She is the webmaster and sole critic at FlickFilosopher.com, which debuted in 1997 and is now one of the most popular, most respected, and longest-running movie-related sites on the Internet. Her film reviews also appear in a variety of alternative-weekly newspapers across the U.S. Johanson is one of only a few film critics who is a member of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (the Webby organization), an invitation-only, 500-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities. She is also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. She has appeared as a cultural commentator on BBC Radio, LBC-London, and on local radio programs across North America, and she served as a judge at the first Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Film Festival at the 2003 I-Con, the largest SF convention on the East Coast. She is the author of The Totally Geeky Guide to The Princess Bride, and is an award-winning screenwriter. Read Johanson's recent articles below. For her AWFJ.org archive, type "MaryAnn Johanson" in the Search Box (upper right corner of screen).