The Movie Reviewer

This story was originally published on Medium.

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“All in all, War Dogs was a great movie. I would give it an A minus. I could’ve given it a straight up A, had it not been for the 57 uses of the word “bro” which felt like about 52 too many.” Avery explained, deep in thought, on a roll. “I’m, of course, allowing for two uses of “bro” which actually made for big laughs, and another three uses of “bro” which lent themselves to character development. But still, for a movie just under two hours, that’s about a “bro” every other minute. Too many “bros.”

She looked across the table at Avery with her hazel eyes, fixated on him, glowing, determined.

“Okay, my first question is, why are you reviewing War Dogs now?” She said. “Didn’t that movie come out eight years ago?”

“More like seven.” Avery responded. “And I just got to watching it.”

“Okay. Second question, why are you telling me?”

“Well, you know, reviewing the movie.”

“I will repeat… why are you telling me?”

Avery looked around the cafe, as if a passerby would give him an answer to the question that eluded him. As if the sweet smell of a whatever-ccino would illuminate the situation. As if he had a lifeline to use, poll the audience, or phone a barista.

“I answered your ad.” Avery spoke slowly. “About reviewing movies. The job…”

“Oh no, honey.” The woman said. “My ad was not about reviewing movies.”

“Oh. Really? What job was your ad about?” Avery was so confused. Did he click on the wrong ad?

“It wasn’t about a job that you could do for me. It was about a job I could do for you.”

Avery was so lost.

“A job you could do for me? But I didn’t need a job…”

Avery stopped mid-sentence and realized, this woman he thought was offering him a job to review movies had quite the high skirt. Quite the low-cut shirt revealing quite the cleavage. Quite the midriff exposed as well. A lot of quite. She had quite the quite going on.

“Ohhh.” Avery’s eyes popped open. “I must have clicked on the wrong ad.”

“Yeah, you really must have.” The woman chuckled.

“Why’d you let me go on for so long?” Avery wondered.

“Honestly, I was quite intrigued.”

Quite.

She continued.

“You know, if I may lend some criticism and feedback… overall it was a great review. Made me want to watch the movie… more so than the trailers ever did. I would say though, lean a bit more on the serious stuff. I liked the jokey bits, but it was a little too jokey for my taste. Maybe end on a serious note instead.”

“Ooh, that’s good stuff.” Avery quickly whipped his phone out and began typing. “Let me jot this down before I forget.”

“No worries, honey.” The woman began to get up.

“Wait, wait.” Avery held his hand out. “I feel like I wasted your time, just now. I’m sorry… please, let me pay you for your services.”

“But I didn’t perform any of my services.”

“But you did perform a service. You helped me out, gave me great feedback. Surely, there is some amount you could charge for… feedback… uh…”

Avery was searching for an appropriate title for what this woman just did for him.

“Trust me, honey.” She leaned forward with a slight smile. “This ain’t a job that I charge for.”

“Nothing I can do for you?” Avery asked.

“You already bought me a coffee.” She said, motioning to her cup. “And gave me a good movie to watch tonight. I’d say we’re even.”

With that, she got up, and left the cafe.

And that is the story of how the sex worker helped to get Avery the job as a movie reviewer. A job he held for just three weeks, as he stayed in contact with the sex worker, asking for more feedback on all his reviews, resulting in one meetup outside of his office which gave the wrong impression to his boss and got him fired.

The office was a nice place. Friendly people. The business was run well. But some people are just so close-minded. Unwilling to accept change. When would we, as a society, find it to be alright for single people to go to sex workers for feedback on reviewing movies? The “old-school mentality” of the office and its employees was its only drawback.

Solid A minus.

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