Spread

Of all the pleasures 2010 might offer, few will be guiltier than ‘Spread’. Shallow, melodramatic, pretentious and wildly misguided, it’s also ambitious, entertaining and rather funny. Ashton Kutcher (right) plays Nikki, a vapid pretty boy (typecasting alert!) who uses his studly charms to gain favours from rich LA women. Until – shock horror – he falls in love with Margarita Levieva’s stunning but brittle waitress, who may be employing a few manipulative tricks of her own.

British director David Mackenzie (‘Hallam Foe’) desperately wants ‘Spread’ to be the modern equivalent of Hal Ashby’s ‘Shampoo’: a searing indictment of Hollywood superficiality and American avarice. The opening is promising – crisply photographed, sharply written and unashamedly sexual. Nikki is a memorably voracious vulture, the perfect fit for Kutcher’s brash public persona. That is, until the script suddenly demands that we empathise with him: our hero’s fall from grace provokes scorn rather than sympathy, though there’s still a fair amount of vindictive enjoyment to be had on the way down.