Viva (2007)

53% of critics liked it
(38 reviews)
36% of users liked it
(272 ratings)

Writer and director Anna Biller takes a swingin' look back at sexploitation cinema of the '70s in this candy-colored comedy drama. Barbi (Anna Biller) is a beautiful but blasé suburban housewife whose handsome mate, Rick (Chad England), is more interested in his career than in quenching his wife's… More Writer and director Anna Biller takes a swingin' look back at sexploitation cinema of the '70s in this candy-colored comedy drama. Barbi (Anna Biller) is a beautiful but blasé suburban housewife whose handsome mate, Rick (Chad England), is more interested in his career than in quenching his wife's sensual thirsts. When up-and-coming actor Mark (Jared Sanford) and his open-minded wife, Sheila (Bridget Brno), move in next door, Barbi discovers they're more than willing to help her find the thrills she's been missing. Before long, Mark and Sheila part company, and when Rick finds out about Barbi's extramarital dalliances, he walks out on her. Free to do as she pleases, Barbi changes her name to Viva and teams up with Sheila to join the front lines of the sexual revolution, enjoying assignations with a dizzying variety of partners, including hipster artist Clyde (Marcus DeAnda), psychedelic naturalist Elmer (Paolo Davanza), experimental theater advocate Arthur (John Klemantaski), glamorous lesbian model Agnes (Robbin Ryan), and sexually ambiguous hair stylist Sherman (Barry Morse). But will Viva's appetite for the ecstatic lead her into dangerous and unexpected places? Viva received the "Best of Fest" award at the 2007 Boston Underground Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: R, 2 hr.
Directed By: Anna Biller
Genres: Drama, Musical & Performing Arts, Art House & International, Comedy

In Theaters: Jan 30, 2007 Wide
On DVD: Feb 24, 2009
Studio: Cult Epics

Critic Reviews

Rafer Guzman, Newsday
You can't create camp on purpose.
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
The movie isn't comfortable or wholly successful.
Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times
With its copious nudity and zipless hedonism, Viva, though unduly long, is a crafty reminder of a time when the X rating was flaunted, not feared.
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
It takes skill -- a certain sly, even perverse nimbleness of craft -- to make an homage to schlock movies that treats them as works of art. Viva, written and directed by its star, Anna Biller, could just about be the third featurette in Grindhouse.
Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times
The movie pops with parodic joy--in the hoary double-entendres and presentational acting styles--and hotly lighted 35-millimeter cinematography that evokes lounge music album covers and Playboy ads.
Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News
The campy early '70s is the goofy gift that keeps on giving in Viva, a mock soft-core sexploitation film that gets a lot right but forgets that less is often more, especially in plaid.
Edward Porter, Times [UK]
There is barely an out and-out gag - and certainly none that's funny - in the whole two hours of deliberately bad acting.
Philip French, Observer [UK]
Viva lasts a staggering two hours (the audience does the staggering) and it doesn't merely end up an embarrassing bore, it gets there within a couple of minutes of the opening.
Simon Crook, Empire Magazine
The plywood acting's pretty funny, as is the coy sex; what amazes is the beautifully lurid, near-fetishistic set design. At two hours, it's an in-joke over-indulged, and it's so camp the camera's practically winking, but minor cultdom beckons.
Tom Huddlestone, Time Out
At an epic two hours the stilted dialogue and eye-scorchingly oversaturated film stock threaten to test the patience. But as a self-conscious exercise in kitsch graverobbing, 'Viva' succeeds.
Jon Fortgang, Film4
Great retro design, but as comic satire this isn't so much soft-focus as out of focus.
Wendy Ide, Times [UK]
It's the sort of attention to detail that would be admirable in a short film. But in a film that plays out at two hours it's unendurable. Paying ironic homage to bad cinema doesn't suddenly make it good.
Andrew Pulver, Guardian [UK]
Where her film lets itself down, though, is it's simply not funny; you assume that a certain kind of hipster audience may be tickled by all this, but the laughs will be as forced as those that bray out of the screen at all too regular intervals.
Tim Evans, Sky Movies
At two hours it's basically an extended sketch stretched to feature lengh and by the end the vibrancy of the never-seen-in-nature colours are reaching migraine-inducing proportions.
Matt Mueller, Total Film
For all its garish aesthetics, sly feminism and wall-to-wall nudity, writer/director Anne Biller's camp-com is almost too much of a good thing, outstaying its welcome at a paint-drying two hours.
David Edwards, Daily Mirror [UK]
Bums and bosoms are in abundance, although there's not enough plot to go around, meaning you'll feel every minute of that two-hour running time.
, Sun Online
The film is the cinematic equivalent of greeting cards which poke fun at beehive-haired wives getting slippers for their pipe-smoking husbands, with a rude word inserted in a speech bubble. Not funny.
Nigel Andrews, Financial Times
The acting is as subtly, drolly bad as it needs to be. The hairpieces and cheesy background muzak compete for the honour of perfect finishing touch. At two hours Viva is a mite too long. But summer is here: give genius its leash.
Allan Hunter, Daily Express
This is an arch, knowing exercise in cinematic parody where every line of dialogue seems to come with inverted commas. Stretched over two hours it becomes unbearable.
Anton Bitel, Little White Lies
Anna Biller's pastiche of '70s sexploitation flicks finds its G-spot somewhere between misogyny and feminism. It's a transgressive joy - if somewhat overlong.