PVT Chat is an edgy erotic drama that sees Uncut Gems’ breakout Julia Fox star as a sex worker who is stalked by an otherwise aimless slacker. First coming to prominence in 2020’s anxiety-inducing Adam Sandler vehicle Uncut Gems, for many viewers, Fox managed to steal the entire movie as the flighty, effortlessly charming young mistress of Sandler’s perpetually aggrieved, volatile gambling addict.
Now a year after Uncut Gems' release, Fox is back with her first starring role playing a cam girl in the indie drama PVT Chat. The film isn’t a far cry, in both tone and theme, from her Safdie Brothers debut, with the two movies delving into the dark side of the human psyche and studying how mounting obsession can eventually come to override common sense in an anxious, addicted mind. Also set in the grittier side of New York, PVT Chat follows a shiftless drifter who becomes obsessed with Fox’s online dominatrix, before shifting the movie’s focus to her personal life in the latter half of proceedings.
Fox’s Uncut Gems performance was roundly praised upon the movie’s release, but the urgent and relentless pace of the Sadie Brothers’ drama ensured that no actor other than Adam Sandler got a lot of focused screen time. PVT Chat, in contrast, boasts a more measured pace and is centered almost entirely around Fox’s character, with the first half of the film being told from the perspective of a stalker-ish client who becomes obsessed with her, and the second half being shown from her own perspective.
The plot of PVT Chat is disarmingly simple, relying entirely on two central performances from its leads. Peter Vack’s Jack is an Internet gambler and compulsive cam-girl caller who becomes obsessed with Scarlett, Fox’s online dominatrix. Jack racks up gambling debts playing pointedly metaphorical blackjack, earning the ire of small-time mobsters in the process, before eventually seeing the object of his affections in person in New York - at which point PVT Chat switches to Scarlett's point of view.
Far from the femme fatale viewers may well have been expecting, Scarlett is revealed to be an aspiring painter with a nice apartment and a nervy playwright boyfriend, who she is supporting financially as he attempts to adapt their life into a (terrible) indie stage play. It’s a clever subversion of expectations, as PVT Chat begins like a Taxi Driver-esque tale of obsession that descends into the seemingly dark world of Internet pornography, before revealing its heroine to be a likable everywoman struggling to find purpose, and the movie itself to be an idiosyncratic character study of two very different people who are both unable to gets their lives in order and work out what they want.
Fox is the undisputed star of PVT Chat as Scarlett, the dominatrix supporting her playwright boyfriend and harboring secret hopes of someday selling her paintings. Fox herself worked as a dominatrix before becoming an actor and her character is the most fully rounded figure in PVT Chat, balancing a harsh persona with a charming demeanor outside of work and continuing to commit to an aimless relationship in a manner both hard to watch and hard to look away from. Vack’s Jack, meanwhile, is Scarlett’s biggest fan. The aimless protagonist spends the action of PVT Chat playing online blackjack to earn money that he then blows on cam girls, but there’s no sense of urgency buried beneath his placid exterior. He drifts through life on autopilot, only coming alive when he thinks he spots Scarlett in the flesh and later attempts to break into her apartment.
Keith Poulson brings hilariously neurotic energy to the role of Duke, the playwright boyfriend of Fox’s Scarlett. An unashamed slacker, Duke is vaguely attempting to script a self-indulgent play that is blatantly ripped from his own life, and in the intervening meantime, he’s more than happy for Scarlett to pay the bills and fund their existence without any input from him. Pretentious and believably vapid, Duke may not be the most compelling character in PVT Chat but he’s probably the funniest nonetheless. Finally, Good Time supporting star Buddy Duress brings some edge and intensity to the part of Larry, a criminal who Jack encounters in his high-risk gambling exploits. It’s a small supporting role, but one that the indie star is perfectly suited to and nails despite his limited screen time.
Befitting a movie of its scuzzy style, PVT Chat isn’t getting a wide release and is instead heading straight to VOD platforms. PVT Chat is available to rent online from Vudu, Fandango, iTunes, Prime Video, Rakuten TV, Google Play, Sky Store, CHILI, and Apple TV.
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