The Unhappy Hooker: Vernier Explores Ennui in Monaco
Interconnected drifters aligned with sex work once again provide the backbone for Virgil Vernier’s third feature 100,000,000,000,000 (aka Cent mille milliards), a reference to the futile amount of money required to buy freedom…or happiness. A handsome young escort in Monaco has a life-changing connection during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, the desolate period for the transients and wanderers who find themselves isolated. An interesting idea inadequately executed transforms a seventy-minute running time into a tormenting exercise of patience, a meandering and desultory effort which feels as unmoored from reflecting human experiences as its characters do from their purported apathy.… Read the rest
