Though nobody involved is admitting as much, A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures is a mockumentary, nay, if you will, cockumentary, detailing the apparent penile and romantic mishaps of filmmaker and hapless guide Chris Waitt.
Mr. Waitt’s increasingly hilarious attempts to interview all his ex-girlfriends is, ostensibly, a means for him to discover why he keeps getting dumped. Hmm. Might it be the love letters that read ‘Oi cunty’? Erectile dysfunction that proves beyond the help of his local dominatrix dungeon facilities? The fact that he needs his mum to call up his former dates for him?
Much clowning is derived from the film’s British suburban environs. It’s all well and good to swoop down on reluctant interviewees when you’re Nick Broomfield or Michael Moore on the conspiracy trail. It is a rather different thing for Mr. Waitt to chase after the girl who dumped him when, after a two year relationship, he made a pass at her mother.
Like Borat, some of the folks here seem to be actors; others are Real Live People. The girls are simply too gorgeous and plentiful to have all plumped for an ageing Gen X-er who still looks as though he’s heading off to a Kurt Cobain lookalike event. Besides, the film is too structured, too neat, too funny to con us completely. There are wildly comic set-pieces; Mr. Waitt goes on the rampage after a Viagra overdose. He even takes a full frontal beating of the testes to keep us amused.
We’re delighted to go along with the prank. It could be that this man has created the greatest English fall-guy since Alan Partridge. To his producer he’s a “scruffy twat”. To his disgruntled ex-lovers he’s ‘Dear Shitfuck’ or ‘the worst boyfriend I’ve ever had’. But for the viewer he’s a middle class mummy’s boy who has grown up around gated Barratt communities and sounds as though he’s reading aloud from Rupert The Bear.
You’d dismiss him as a tosser if the film didn’t graphically provide evidence that he’s not even that. Now that’s a punchline.