All About Roachie
by Darwin Blattam
Esteemed Publishing, 476 pages
Reviewed by Christamar Varicella
It
is not clear to what genre belongs the novel, All About Roachie. If
anything it seems to fit with the series of animated insect movies that debuted
in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Movies like Antz, A Bug’s Life, A
Bee Movie, A Termite’s Tail, A Fly’s Fable, The Beetles’ Hard Days Night, Death
to Tse Tse, and so forth. And yet,
somehow, Pixar and other production companies failed to delve into the world of
cockroaches. Herein lies the
establishing premise of All About
Roachie. The protagonist, Darwin, is
extremely bitter that his species has been left out of the spotlight.
Darwin
spends his days sulking and flipping channels, his anger inflamed every time he
comes across a bug movie re-broadcast on cable.
“Another movie about ants,” he laments.
“Those guys are just mindless drones.
You might as well make a movie about sheep.” Soon he engages in an extended rant. “Bees again?
Do you think people would eat honey if they knew how it was made? Wake
up, People. You’re eating bee vomit!”
Darwin
berates filmmakers for taking artistic liberties such as having the roaches
speak English instead of an insect language, and for portraying some animals as
being capable of higher intellect while others remain simplistic and mute. And why is it, he wonders, that in these
movies some of the human characters are capable of understanding the insects while
others are not?
Darwin
seeks to redress the wrongs of Hollywood by penning his own screenplay. He then takes his manuscript to Irving, a
down and out talent agent, who, low and behold, is one of a handful of humans
capable of understanding Darwin.
Not
only does Darwin speak English, he writes it as well. And after some convincing Irving reads Darwin’s screenplay (with the help of a magnifying glass) and is sufficiently
impressed to offer representation. The
remainder of the novel is divided into two sections: 1) Irving’s seemingly insurmountable
task of getting a movie about cockroaches made as his temperamental
screenwriter sits in his pocket refusing to compromise. 2) The screenplay-within-a-novel about a
very determined cockroach who survives despite insurmountable odds and who scores thousands of insect babes.
Despite his grand ambition, it soon becomes obvious, even to Darwin, that no
screenplay gets made in Hollywood unless a bonafide star is attached. Darwin helps his own cause by appearing on
the pillow of Meryl Streep, whispers in her ear, and convinces her to stretch the boundaries of her
considerable acting talent by not only volunteering to play one of the main cockroaches, but also to learn cockroach language--in essence, a series of clicks
and antennae movements.
But
even with Streep on board, the film faces seemingly impossible challenges, not
the least of which is to convince studio executives to allow a movie to be made
in a seemingly nonexistent language with English subtitles. But any would-be doubters be warned. If you think Darwin will give up, you don’t
know Roachie. That bug is a survivor.
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