The Hunger - No Radio

Yawn. Twenty seven minutes of tedium. If the suburban wife, well-to-do and bored, was lost in her tedium, hoping for excitement, she had nothing on me. I was just hoping for anything that might whisper to me, “Just you wait, this will reach out and compel you…” Yeah, didn’t happen.

Amanda De Cadenet wakes up to a phone call from some guy named Jamie (Bruce Ramsey) addressing her as Miranda. No matter how many times she tells this fool she isn’t Miranda he insists on calling her that name. Meanwhile her wealthy husband, Calvin (James Rae), is geeking out over chess pieces or something, rushing off from pizza night to meet some seller at a hotel. Amanda’s “no name” wife decides she’ll have her fun with Jamie, initiating an affair that has as much passion as a kid’s dull piano recital.  I think you can tell I pretty much fucking loathed this episode of The Hunger.

Amanda is absolutely emotionally destitute and Ramsey is this pitiable, indebted-to-shylock schmuck borrowing nice costumes and track suits from an urban cleaners (the proprietor likes him). Put these two together and allow them to continue being miserable despite having lots of (implied/off-screen) sex, and No Radio has no passion, no eroticism, no heart, no spirit, and no soul behind it.

While Amanda calls Jamie to her home when the hubby’s away, or clubs with another woman at some techno joint with lots of neon as he jealously gets all bothered, the episode continues to paint their affair as this heartless exercise in futility. Instead of just calling the whole fucking thing off, Amanda agrees (we’re led to believe) to serve as Jamie’s “kidnap victim” in exchange for some of her husband’s money to pay off his debts but she has a surprise for him.

If you can’t get a rise out of me with a severed head in a lava lamp there’s little hope at all. And this episode delivers its content with a sour face and bland expressiveness that left me cold. That’s the point, though. These people are treading water in life; those with and without money are equal parts languishing. I am just so happy I could join them for a half hour.

Jamie’s apartment is bare thanks to money he owes to Clovis (Warren Williams), and with little effort Amanda joins him in Clovis’ car. They fuck in his apartment for a change, but she eventually tires of his pathetic ass.

And with that I close this review because I just want to forget about this whole experience. Thank you Amanda for putting sad sack Jamie out of his misery. At least her husband almost lets slip a smile when his wife returns from her bit of fun. She seemed to have at least garnered an emotional spark shooting Jamie with a gun on her person.