SUGAR DADDIES
US, 2014, 90 minutes, Colour.
Taylor Gildersleeve, Peter Strauss, James C.Burns, Isabella Hoffman, Ashley Mc Carthy, Timothy Brennen, Samantha Robinson, Griffin Freeman.
Directed by Doug Campbell.
“Sugar Daddies” is a euphemism for “dirty old men”. And this is the case here, affluent dirty old men who seem initially charming but prey on young women, setting them up financially, at their sexual beck and call.
This is something of a moralising film, a warning to young women, especially in this case of University students with meagre means, not to get caught up in any kind of prostitution, especially being the equivalent of a call girl for the Sugar Daddies.
As with this kind of film, there is certain amount of prurience as we watch the central character, a decent enough young woman, Kara (Taylor Gildersleeve) who is put off by her roommate’s reliance on the Sugar Daddy to pay her fees and keep her in clothes and jewellery. She is persuaded to go to a club where the men meet, is introduced to a businessman, Grant, who is praised as being a catch. He is played by Peter Strauss, a long way and many years from Rich Man, Poor Man.
Kara’s family is in straitened circumstances after an accident with her father which is not covered by insurance. However, her parents are a decent couple, the father doing auto mechanic repairs. They want Kara to study and graduate. She has been offered an internship with a significant lawyer during her summer break.
When she begins a relationship with Grant, she is at first reluctant, then fairly easily slips into the role of a mistress, with his promises to pay her tuition as well as her father’s medical fees. She goes along with this, alienating her student boyfriend when he discovers the truth.
But one of the points being made is that these young women either don’t have a moral anchor, no discernment between what is right in what is wrong, claiming that they are adults, doing nothing wrong and can make their own choices, or they have a moral anchor which they ignore more and more. This becomes the case with Kara.
There are some contrivances in the plot, Grant giving Kara a new car and her not paying attention and bumping into another vehicle, asking her father to repair it and his discovering that Grant owns the car, leading to a confrontation with his daughter, and with Grant. She asserts her independence although she is caught up in Grant’s fantasies, especially sexual highs through asphyxiation.
She refuses to leave her father’s birthday party and Grant cuts off her off. She succumbs to Grant again, but when he invites her and a friend to go together to his mansion and the friend gives her a drug, she is sick, finds that Grant has asphyxiated her friend and his loyal assistant has disposed of the body.
The film becomes melodramatic – perhaps because it is to serve as a warning for young women who might be contemplating such behaviour and it is reminding them of the dire consequences possible. Kara has a GPS which she has turned off but fortunately, turns it on again, phones her father as she is abducted by Grant’s assistant, her father follows her and there is a last-minute saving Kara from being injected with a deadly drug. They go to the police, Grant trying to escape in his private plane when he is arrested.
The film does what it intends to do, leading us into this seeming highlife, highlighting its attractiveness, then indicating the consequences and the repercussions for these choices.
