No Vacancy is an attempt to revive the defunct genre of the screwball comedy. As such it has no real plot to speak of. Instead it is a series of interlocking vignettes tied together only by locale. That locale is a diner/hotel where the occupants are all off their rockers which leads to chaos at every turn. Lilian (Christina Ricci) wakes up to find that instead of her fiancée, a stranger is in her bed. After the expected freak out, she finds that this new man, Luke (Timothy Olyphant) is more what she wants in her life than the lowlife she’s engaged to. Meanwhile Pete (Ryan Bollman) and Alex (Steven Schub) have just spent the night with two high end escorts and have no way to pay for the services, prompting a threat to receive a visit from their handler, the notorious Mr. Tangerine (Robert Wagner).
The owner of the establishment where all this is happening, Reynaldo (Joaquin de Almeida) is battling wills with his young daughter Ramona (Patricia Velasquez) over her determination to date Michael (Gabriel Mann), a white man who doesn’t live up to Reynaldo’s standards. Michael also may or may not have gotten Ramona pregnant. Pepper into this mix Constance (Lolita Davidovich), a health nut obsessed with beat juice and homemade beauty products, a mermaid reciting nursery rhymes and a couple of diner patrons constantly playing chess and you get an idea of just how manic this film is at times.
Nothing really gels in this film. Christina Ricci’s character Lilian is pushed front and center, both in the trailers and in the final edit and that is the only stuff worth watching in an otherwise dreary and messy script. However, the film is edited in such a way as to never linger on Lilian for very long before cutting back to all the other stuff, none of which is worth paying attention to. The plot revolving around Alex and Pete is pointless and spirals so out of control that we never really care where they will end up. When Mr. Tangerine shows up demanding $1,000 for services provided I hoped he would put a bullet in their heads and end their part in this mess of a film.
1999 was a transitional year for Christina Ricci as she was establishing herself as an adult actress and distancing herself from the child roles of the early to mid 90’s. She dove into dark subjects in 98’s Buffalo ‘66, The Opposite of Sex, and Desert Blue while also establishing herself as having range beyond angsty teenagers. No Vacancy may not have aided her career but it didn’t seem to hinder it, either. In fact, this film highlights who she was as an actress quite well. Her moments on screen are about the only things worth watching. They’re poorly written and underdeveloped but at least they’re not ruinous.
Screwball comedies work when there are characters worth following down the rabbit hole of insanity. Back in their hay-day it was the zany antics of well established personalities that carried these films. Often times, A-list stars like Cary Grant got in on the action, bringing their supersized personas with them to do some of the heavy lifting. There is none of that here. The cast is game but don’t have the charisma or the star power to overcome the oddities of the script. This is a critical weakness that sinks an already shaky production. Couple that with poorly staged set-pieces and and truly awful editing and you get a real picture of why this film fails on nearly all accounts.
No Vacancy has slipped through the cracks into the land of forgotten failures. It is nowhere to be found on streaming or digital platforms and was only available through an early 2000’s era DVD release that is now out of print. Sometimes when you have to work to find a copy of a film you find a hidden gem worthy of the effort. That’s not the case here. This film is forgotten for a reason. A better release is unlikely because, quite frankly, people don’t want one. This film is best left where it is currently, out of print and mostly lost to the annuals of time.
Release Date: April 16, 1999
Running Time: 83 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Christina Ricci, Timothy Olyphant, Robert Wagner, Lolita Davidovich, Gabriel Mann, Ryan Bollman and Steven Schub
Directed By: Marius Balchunas
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