by John Bear
Daily Lobo
It seemed like such a good idea at the time, helping an impoverished girl from Burma immigrate to the United States and escape a life of turmoil. In return she can do the dishes once in a while. It's a win-win situation.
Of course if you are using a mail-order bride service, at least in the universe created by director Huck Botko, odds are you likely make dirty movies in the basement of your Queens home. So maybe it's not exactly win-win.
"Mail Order Wife" starts off looking like one of those pseudo-documentaries we've all come to know and kind of get sick of. Think "Best in Show" with even more twisted and unlikeable characters.
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Adrian, played by Adrian Martinez, is a portly loser who orders up a wife via a mail-order bride service. A doorman by trade, he receives the financial assistance of Andrew, played by Andrew Gurland, a smug documentary filmmaker who wants to make the whole ordeal the subject of his next project.
Lichi arrives after several months of correspondence. She is a meek, shaken young woman. According to her, she grew up destitute in a Burmese village. Her sister was sold into slavery and she took the only way out, marrying a hopelessly awkward social retard who every time he speaks edges a little closer toward outright creepy.
Needless to say, sympathy is immediately aroused for Lichi.
At first it appears Adrian is merely looking for a servant. The first thing he shows Lichi at his home is how to clean a toilet. Then he forces her to watch him feed his snake. Things look bleak, at best.
Ordering up a human being to perform menial household chores is bad enough, but when Adrian attempts to have Lichi spayed like a pet and starts making bizarre homemade porn, she flees to the open arms of Andrew. He begins a relationship with Lichi, feigning concern for her well-being. Of course, he continues to make the documentary, and before long, has her catering his dinner parties.
Both Adrian and Andrew underestimate Lichi. As the film progresses, whether she is just a poor girl from Burma becomes increasingly hard to gauge.
The film is billed as a comedy, and it is in a dark, uncomfortable way. Martinez delivers Philip Seymour Hoffman levels of fat nerd perversion, and Gurland's snotty New York intellect is convincing enough to make you want to go out and find a film student to torture in your basement.
Eugenia Yuan is convincing as the naive Lichi, delivering a believable performance without straying into stereotype territory.
The film tends to drag a little bit in places, but overall it is entertaining. Botko manages to extract decidedly creepy performances out of Martinez and Gurland. Martinez is the card-carrying sleaze ball of the two. However, the viewer ends up hating both based on their mutual mistreatment of Lichi.
"Mail Order Wife" basically follows standard mockumentary rules but diverges somewhat with its wholly unlikeable and tension-inducing male leads.
