Fantasia 2020 Review: PVT Chat, An Unconvential Romance-Thriller

By Leila Latif

PVT Chat is an unconventional romance-thriller from writer/director Ben Hozie, best known as the front man of the impossibly cool art-punk band Bodega. It tells the story of Scarlet (Julia Fox), a cam girl dominatrix, and the focus of Jack’s (Peter Vack) obsession. When Jack spots - supposedly San Francisco based - Scarlet in a supermarket in New York’s Chinatown, he makes a deal with her: if he can prove that she is in New York, then she has to go with him on a romantic trip to Paris.

This is a confident work from Ben Hozie; he has the very complex central characters very clearly set out. Concerning professional internet gambler Jack, his entire character is clear within the first few minutes: an obsessive and frantic man, behind on his rent, and living on ramen, but spending hundreds of dollars on disinterested cam girls and world-weary escorts. Though a little sleazy, he is not a completely introverted weirdo, as one might expect. He’s handsome, with the sort of foppish hair that always lands perfectly, has reasonable social skills and real women who are interested in him. It’s a solid if uncomfortable performance, made all the more raw by the near constant full frontal male nudity.

The real stand out is Julia Fox, though, fresh off of her excellent and extremely underrated performance in Uncut Gems (2019). She is a magnetic actor, always relaxed and natural whilst conveying so much in the slightest pause or movement. In this, she recalls the striking presence of Nastassja Kinski in Paris, Texas(1984), and is just as compelling.

The film has an unusual composition, with the camera placed at askew angles, with close-ups and long tracking shots erratically cut together to make it all feel slightly unhinged. It’s a stylistic choice that works and makes you feel that, within this world, anything could happen. In some ways anything could. The tone shifts wildly several times within the film and one minute you are watching a thriller, the next a romance, and the next a comedy. Several red herrings are dropped along the way; right up until the final few minutes it’s not entirely clear what this has all been about. 

The film owes a lot to the Safdie brothers, similarly portraying a New York populated by sleazy weirdos and agonisingly poor decision making. And much like them, some of the greatest details are in the background actors, each one bizarre and fully formed. There is a scene in an art gallery that is particularly weird but hilarious, as the character wrestles in front of “another inane artwork on the failure of Occupy Wall Street”. Unfortunately, it doesn’t pack quite the punch of Uncut Gems or Good Time (2017), as the plot never manages to build the forward momentum it needs to keep you fully engrossed.

Overall, this film is most striking when it focusses on Scarlet in one of the most complex and fully human depictions of a sex worker you are ever likely to see. When the film shifts to her perspective, the complexities of the power dynamic between “dominatrix” and “slave” becomes apparent. Jack and Scarlet both rely on one another for their self-worth and, despite their constant lies to each other, they have a truthful intimacy with that is unlike any other relationship in their lives. The ending is something of a damp squib, which is all the more disappointing given all the sign-posted potential paths it could have taken. However, as a dual character study, and as a look at unsettling power dynamics, the film has a lot to say and a visually arresting way of saying it.

PVT Chat was reviewed as part of our coverage of Fantasia 2020.

Leila Latif is a Sudanese writer based in London. She has written about films, race, food and their intersections for The Guardian, Little White Lies, The BFI, Eater and Sight & Sound. She is a horror film junkie who will defend Scream 4, The Evil Dead Remake and season 6 of Buffy with her dying breath.

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