THE SADNESS OF SEX
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Skyvision Partners Director: Rupert Wainwright Writer: Barry Yourgrau, Rupert Wainwright Cast:Barry Yourgrau, Peta Wilson
"First you will be happy; then you will be sad." This succinct philosophy of love lies at the heart of "The Sadness of Sex," a pot pourri of fifteen vignettes on the subject of romance delivered into a microphone by Barry Yourgrau, directed by music video/commercial helmsman Rupert Wainwright, and gaudily illustrated by a rush of images to open up the stand-up shtick. Yourgrau, who wrote the scenes--which average six or seven minutes each--is an articulate fellow who rattles off monologue that are rich in texture, lyrical in quality, and pretentious to the point of audience exasperation. The goateed, balding poet-raconteur does not have Spalding Gray's charm, and, dressed alternately in a sports jacket with an broad-collared open shirt and in a large fedora circa 1940, he hams outrageously to a night-club audience of beautiful women who laugh at his every gesture and are obviously a casting setup rather than a true assembly of fans.
Perhaps the title, "The Sadness of Sex," was chosen for its alliteration or conceivably to gain the attention of a broader movie audience. While sex is abundantly on Yourgrau's mind, his real subject is love, whose pull he illustrates with a combination of genres and a flurry of MTV-like imagery. Yet some of his scenes are meaningless and vulgar, particularly one in which he describes a game a strip poker indulged in by a group of unattractive business types who have invited a cow to be one of the players. They offer booze to the bovine and decorate her ears with undergarments, while Yourgrau treats us to a brief set of cartoons which appear to illustrate the Kama Sutra. The pair of Indian paramours making love in a variety of positions would have sustained audience interest somewhat more than a shot of a plump card player splashed across the face with milk.
One of Mr. Yourgrau's allegedly postmodern sketches describes the storyteller on a blind date with a woman who excites him on the phone just previous to their meeting by suggesting that he is in for a surprise. Bursting with excitement and anticipation, he discovers sadly enough that the big surprise is really a very small one, in fact, his girl friend for the evening is only twelve inches tall and somehow attracts stares from all the diners in the restaurant. He hides the young lady behind a napkin, forcing the waiter to guess the source of the wriggling behind the checkered cloth: is it just spaghetti or is it this unusual date?
Desperate for the companionship of a woman, Yourgrau at one point hires Cupid, a lad of about nine years, who fires his arrow into a woman who runs desperately across the park to avoid this attacker. In a happier situation, Yourgrau is sitting at a cafe when a dazzling blond passes his table, looks briefly at the performer, smiles, then appears to take on the wings of an angel. Peta Wilson in the role of this comely teaser provides several moments of real interest in an otherwise banal film.
Not all of Yourgrau's women are coy: one, whose strawberry-flavored bosom is irresistible to the middle-aged lover, chastises him to end the foreplay by demanding "sex or nothing," while in another instance a group of rebellious, leathery women take over the country and beat up on the male oppressors.
The varied soundtrack written by lyricists like Lori Carson, Sergio Cervetti, Peter Scherer and Bill Elliott cannot infuse enough oxygen into the absurd script, whose real message to its audience is "When you come into some movies you will be happy. Then you will be sad."
Not Rated. Running time: 96 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
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