"X's & O's" Review - Written by Kelsey Zukowski

Starring: Clayne Crawford, Sarah Wright, Judy Marte, Warren Christie, John Whynn, Kel Mitchell
Written & Directed By: Kedar Korde
Released: 2008
Grade: B

X’s & O’s is a romantic comedy that doesn’t ignore that sometimes, quite frankly, relationships suck. It isn’t always easy and human emotions, desires, and wellbeing can be compromised when everything just becomes part of a game. It shows this through all sorts of point of views: female, male, the invisible crush, the confused and mistreated guy who in turn does some mistreating of his own, those who go on with one night stands to protect themselves, and those who truly get joy from flaunting their sex appeal only for the reason to have the power to mess with the minds of others.

Simon (Crawford) is a scientist who is in grad school and spends most of his time studying and working at the lab researching. Trese (Marte) is a girl who spends a lot of her time at the lab as well. They clearly have a lot in common as they both use science in nearly every aspect of their life and they are both hopelessly waiting on the sidelines unable to have the one they love. Trese wants to be with Simon, but she knows that he doesn’t think of her that way. He is far too concerned with Jane (Wright), his beautiful yet very manipulative ex-girlfriend.. Simon keeps on chasing after the dream that she will be his girlfriend again. Jane refuses to satisfy this notion, yet at the same time encourages it only to toy with him.

After putting up with this for some time he starts to see something in Trese. They start spending time together and soon end up dating. Things seem to be going well until Simon starts to flake out on Trese, not showing up for her poetry performance and not giving her much attention at all. The cause of this is Jane of course. She is not done having her fun with Simon and as soon as she gives him even the smallest inch of hope he is willing to drop everything for her. Lorenzo (Christie) is used to being the more flawed one in the way he treats girls, but watching how Simon is acting is very eye-opening and frustrating for him at the same time. This causes a lot of conflict between them and reveals the truth that he has been having sex with Jane for months.

The cast does pretty well and all of them are believable in their roles. The most interesting performance came from Sarah Wright, who was recently in the film, The House Bunny and is someone I have been looking out for since her charming days as the bubbly dumb blonde, Paige, in the pre-maturely canceled sitcom, Quintuplets. From the beginning she plays the controlling and selfish bitchy Jane very well. Towards the end of the film she really takes her character to a whole new level and reveals herself as pure evil. It is unclear of whether she is yanking Simon around because she really cares about him in some twisted way or if she simply got joy out of watching him squirm. It is obvious that Jane didn’t care about any of the other guys or any freedom it gave her and really didn’t want them for anything other than to dangle them in front of Simon even if it meant wrecking others’ people’s lives with giving them false promises. She might not have been a likeable character, but Wright’s performance stands out because she makes us feel more than other do, even if those feelings are frustration and hate.

Judy Marte gave us a likeable female role in Trese that we could feel for in respect. She was really the only one who didn’t have questionable actions. She was intelligent and didn’t feel the need to hide that. She also was artistic and true to her emotions. Even more so she demanded the respect she knew she deserved. Clayne Crawford did well too. He comes off as a smart and all around good guy who is afraid to let go of a woman that others’ would probably think he is not good enough for. However, as the film goes on we see that he really isn’t a very good guy. He drops the people who really care about him for a woman who just wants to see him miserable. Crawford makes this transition in his character well as we go from sympathizing with him to just wanting to smack some sense in to him. Warren Christie in his portrayal of Lorenzo really took the opposite turn. He slept around with different girls and didn’t really have much of a clue about what he wanted his future to be and was also hang up on an old girlfriend who now won’t doesn’t want anything to do with him. He does a lot of self discovering thanks to Trese and is a much more redeemable character than Simon. As a big fan of Kel Mitchell growing up in his Nickelodeon days, it was great to see him in this movie. He was pretty funny and fresh here, especially in his deejaying and dancing to a religious jam, putting the energy in to every second of it.

The film also had a sub-plot of an Asian wigger, Jimmy (Whynn) who was constantly . I liked how Simon talked about his concern of an identity crisis with his friend. This seems very logical in someone who doesn’t have a real identity and just picks up someone else’s due to their own insecurities and uncertainties. Things did get complicated with his character particularly through his relationship with his girlfriend. He treated her horribly and after being incarcerated for 2 hours, she is finally put in more control. To keep her he promises to change his ways. By doing this Jimmy becomes “too girly” to her and ends up ruining things anyway. He keeps on trying on different ideas to satisfy his reputation and others, but really just needs to take some time to find out who he really is. Trese was a great opposite example to this. She is a very light skinned African-American and gets comments about not really being black. She is proud of her heritage and doesn’t let others define her, but shows others that she is strong and worthy of respect.

The inability to let go of the past is a continuous theme in the film. This is true for just about every character in the movie. I was surprised and disappointed with how the film ended. It seemed like Trese and Lorenzo really had the chance to make each other happy and could really be there for each other to make each other’s lives better. When Lorenzo let Trese have an impact on him, he began to let go of the past and for the first time was able to think about a future. Trese really deserved someone like him that she could count on to support her dreams and compliment her very well. This does compliment the theme that love is not perfect, it is messy and it can yank you back and forth. X’s & O’s doesn’t feel like an independent film at all since it doesn’t look or feel it with the quality that it holds up. Writer/director Kedar Korde gives us a very funny film that takes time and looks in to different characters, offering his audience with an appealing film for everyone. In the beginning Simon tells a kid on his Catholic basketball team that him missing the shot was the fault of God. This offers the critique of thanking God for winning a game, but not blaming him when things go wrong is both funny. This was both witty and very realistic, since a friend of mine has even used this argument to me before even with this same basketball example. X’s & O’s gives a voice to everyone in the twists of love and lusting, making it stand out from others and is an all around fun time and a refreshing change to most one-sided romantic comedies.