'The Paperboy' is Ambrosia Salad as Cinema

am·bro·sia

 noun \am-ˈbrō-zh(ē-)ə\

Definition of AMBROSIA

1

a : the food of the Greek and Roman gods

b : the ointment or perfume of the gods

2

: something extremely pleasing to taste or smell

3

: a dessert made of oranges and shredded coconut

: an under appreciated American film released in 2012 aka 'The Paperboy'

'The Paperboy' is Ambrosia Salad in celluloid form.  A visual collection of various fruits mixed together with lashings of cream. A tawdry treat not everyone can stomach but for others it's a decadent, demented, delicious dish.

'The Paperboy' is pulp. It's Neo-Noir/Southern Gothic. It's contemporary Douglas Sirk and Tennessee Williams style storytelling. It's not that baffling or confusing to understand and it's not genre breaking. More to the point it's not that bad. So why was this film generally greeted with such vitriolic contempt by critics when it came out?
Set in the late 1960's all your favorite Southern swamp trash archetypes are represented. From the over sexed prison groupie and the over sexed sociopathic killer to the over sexed gay investigative reporter. I know I'm sounding dismissive, but there is a little more going on here than just the overt sexuality.  Sure this film is garish but it's about damaged people suffocating and acting out within the oppressive climate of homophobia, sexism, racism and class structure. Yes It's been done before and much better but this film is not the pariah it's been made out to be.
It's characters and subsequent performances are what I suspect freaked everyone out.
Nicole Kidman turns in a perfectly mental performance as does her pink cupcake frosted mouth. John Cusack is very upsetting as a sexually violent criminal that both Kidman and Matthew McConaughey's gay investigative reporter become enamored with. Yes there is an insane sex scene between Kidman and Cusack but it's in context is not gratuitous and in fact establishes in one unapologetic foul swoop the characters' relationships with each other in no uncertain terms. Besides what do you think happens during prison visits? Not that I'd know of course.
The infantile American media (here's just one idiotic review) squirmed and giggled itself into all sorts of shapes over this film. Yes, Nicole Kidman pees on Zac Efron at the beach because he was stung by jellyfish. But there are a bunch of other things going on in that scene and may I add, if you think Nicole Kidman is sexy then you're a weirdo to begin with.
This film is about Zac Efron's sincere understated performance. He does James Dean better than James Dean ever did. He steals this film from everyone and that's saying something. He's the Jell-O holding this southern treat together.

So to summarize this isn't a poorly made film by any stretch of the imagination. It's really not that challenging or difficult to watch and the performances are not ridiculous either. Human beings are complex and behave in frightening ways. They are often shameless and self defeating in their actions. If this film's subject is shocking to you then I suggest you get out more. If you think it's poorly constructed then you need to catch up with Crash (2004)

I went back for seconds, y'all