Before we get into the weeds with You Don’t Nomi, let’s be clear about one thing: You Don’t Nomi, despite its marketing and its cataloging on the World Wide Web, is not a documentary. And that’s because a documentary generally has two things: facts, and a goal. You Don’t Nomi has neither of those things. That’s not to say that it doesn’t offer its fair share of entertainment, or that director Jeffrey McHale didn’t set out with a specific goal in mind, but by film’s end, the goal you take away is the foresight you’d already obtained on your own before you ever sat down to watch. More on that in a bit.
You Don’t Nomi is
less of a documentary and more of a visual essay and appreciation, comprised of
folks from all walks of life either raining down actual praise on the infamous 1995
flop Showgirls, directed by Paul
Verhoeven, or recognizing it for the over-the-top but entertaining piece of
shit that it is, or dismissing it as trashy, immature, and misogynistic…well,
trash. Obviously, your own opinion on this movie that everyone has likely
already seen will determine what you take away from it. Having seen Showgirls a few times during my
pubescence but not for a very long time since then, my opinion on it, over
time, faded into indifference and dismissal. Just one more movie in a sea of
movies that I saw, recognized wasn’t very good, and haven’t really thought much
about since. Except for the occasional reissue of the flick on Blu-ray with
some kind of included gimmicky swag, I assumed Showgirls was largely forgotten. I had no idea it went onto live
out a second life as a cult classic, with theatrical tours and Q&A’s and
live reenactments by actors both drag-queen and non-drag-queen alike. I had no
idea, after all this time, it was a film people were still discussing at all.
You Don’t Nomi includes participation from film critics, Showgirls
superfans and apologists, and pop culture enthusiasts, yet it doesn’t contain
any active participation from a single person involved in its making. Whether
this was purposeful, or because it was impossible to get anyone involved to go
on the record within the confines of a discussion where 2/3rds of its
participants recognize that Showgirls
is a terrible movie, we don’t know. What that leaves, ultimately, are a bunch
of people who had nothing to do with making the movie telling you that Showgirls is brilliant in ways you
didn’t notice, entertaining in ways that were never intended, or without any
redeemable value at all. Ironically, it’s those participants who deride Showgirls’ content as ill-informed,
misogynistic, and immature who come away sounding the most level-headed and thoughtful,
whereas those attempting to defend the film’s legacy really stretch the limits of legitimacy. One participant in
particular, who has dedicated a good portion of his life to defending Showgirls and trying to make people
understand that it’s a flick worthy of a second evaluation, completely
invalidates his position by then going on to lampoon other much more well
received films like Verhoeven’s own Basic
Instinct, or the generally well-regarded Forest Gump and American
Beauty, and calling critics who described Showgirls as being poorly made “fucking morons.” What’s supposed to come off as feisty and fun
instead reeks of elitism, and it tarnishes the otherwise honest and fair point
of “hey, you’ve misunderstood this movie;” and in almost the same breath where
he lavishes praise on Showgirls’ cinematography,
he calls American Beauty a piece of
shit, which has been nearly universally renowned for that very same thing. (For
the record, I don’t like American Beauty,
and I recall being fairly unimpressed by Basic
Instinct when I first saw it, but I also wouldn’t attempt to downgrade the
legacies they’ve gone on to achieve, nor speak for anyone else and dismiss the
people who enjoy them. Also, I love Forest Gump – fight me.)
You Don’t Nomi really
only comes alive during the moments where we get to see archival interviews
with Paul Verhoeven where he both defends and admits Showgirls’ shortcomings, and when there is an honest, critical
analysis done by critics who avoid hyperbole and outrageousness by sharing
their calm and honest thoughts. From a technical standpoint, You Don’t Nomi is engaging through its
clever use of editing, largely incorporating clips from all of Verhoeven’s
other films, either to highlight the director’s commonalities of sex, violence,
the street-justice vengeance of abused women (and vomiting), or even through
the use of editing clips of Showgirls
into his other works, as if Verhoeven’s
better received films are actually passing judgment on it. (Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s Quaid turns on the television in his apartment to see a news
report of Showgirls’ miserable
failure with critics and audiences,
and the expression on his face says it all.)
Despite all my misgivings, you should give You Don’t Nomi a shot if you’re even
marginally interested in Showgirls’ place
in cinema history. You won’t learn a blessed thing beyond the fact that some
people out there like it, and others don’t like it, which is something you
already know, but you may find some value in seeing how the “world’s first
mainstream NC-17 film” is enjoying a second life among the midnight movie
crowd. Plus, if you’ve ever wanted to see a supercut of everyone who’s ever
vomited in a film directed by Paul Verhoeven, you could do a lot worse.
