“My whole life it was obvious I was going to end up in this city. I don’t want to be arrogant here, but I’m an incredibly attractive man. I can’t help it. I don’t try to be. I just am.”
Ewwww. Weird that such overt, Los Angeles–patented smarm opens a trashy Ashton Kutcher vehicle that contains some unusually messy and realistic sex and a somewhat intelligent read on power exchange of relationships. Much like LA., though, or at least our notion of it, and much like Kutcher’s character Nikki (girl name), Spread is essentially hollow, and loses us after the initial sexual curiosity fades.
Kutcher is doing meta here, playing cougar-bait Nikki (to Heche’s Gucci’d lawyer Samantha), riffing with a cool-guy underhand on his own real-life boy-toy thing with Demi Moore. Much of the movie is “Ashton in pool,” “Ashton in Hermes,” “Ashton saying ‘pussy’.” When pretty Nikki gets ousted from Samantha’s life and the story turns from a glossy slut-fest to a down-market love story, it’s all over: the love vs money, good vs evil, and especially love vs sex paradigms don’t work out when it’s Kutcher smirking through them.