And the opposite is…?
The Opposite Of Sex A Film Review By Michael Redman Copyright By Michael Redman
***1/2 (Out of ****)
Life is weird. The longer I'm around the more I think that statement is a given. Even if you lead what could pass as a "normal" existence, the little oddnesses seep in and it's inevitable that occasionally the ground disappears completely. If you live on the edge, at times it's like being in the Twilight Zone.
On the outside Bill (Martin Donovan) is your typical high school teacher in a small peaceful Indiana town. When he catches a student writing graffiti about him on a restroom wall, he corrects the grammar. His eccentricity is that he is gay. Tom, his lover died a year before, leaving him with a batch of money and a nice house.
Bill's personal Rod Serling episode begins when his 16 year-old half-sister DeeDee (Christina Ricci) runs away from her Louisiana home and comes to visit. Lil sis is not a nice girl. As she explains in her introductory voice-over, "I don't have a heart of gold and I don't grow one later."
DeeDee's first order of business is to seduce Bill's current live-in Matt (Ivan Sergei) convincing him that not to have sex with her would be an act of discrimination. Matt's about as bright as the average box of rocks and falls for the line. Afterwards he announces that he's bi-sexual. Tom's sister Lucia (Lisa Kudrow) -- pronounced "Losha" -- insists that he's mistaken, "I went to a Bar Mitzvah once. That doesn't make me Jewish."
DeeDee says in another voice-over "things get complicated very quick," and she's right on target. In short order she announces that she's pregnant and Matt's the father. They steal $10,000 and Tom's ashes from her brother and take off for LA. Matt's jilted ex-lover Jason shows up and publicly falsely accuses Bill of molesting him when he was a student. There's a trip to Canada with Bill trying to find Matt and Lucia chasing him and Sheriff Carl Tippett (Lyle Lovett) chasing her. There's a killing and police involvement. Every few minutes something new and unexpected happens.
The story is truly complicated but miraculously easy to follow. Writer/director Don Roos has crafted a fine film with a fascinating plot and believable albeit offbeat scenes but the strength is the characters. He has atoned for his screenplay of the atrocious remake of "Diabolique".
Many of the characters are unlikable in the traditional sense, but the audience learns to appreciate them dispite, or perhaps because of, their failings. Even DeeDee, the little girl old beyond her years who uses sex and her ample endowments as weapons, grows on you.
All of the actors fill their roles well. Ricci is exceptional. With this, "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas" and "Icestorm" under her belt, she has left her "Addams Family" and "Casper" roles far behind. Surprisingly another standout is "Friend's" Kudrow. Her sexually-repressed bitter old-woman-before-her-time is the opposite of her television role and she has the best lines in the film.
The film is decidedly anti-politically correct. DeeDee's observations on the gay lifestyle are none too kind. She refers to her brother's former partner as "Bill The Dead Guy". When her white trash former boyfriend berates her for hanging out with "homersexuals" and turning away from the path of God, she asks "So when I was giving you a [slang term for sexual contact illegal in some states] in the backseat, that was the stairway to heaven?"
Sheriff Carl (who has a thing for Lucia)'s observations on sex are especially interesting. He says that sex isn't for procreation or recreation, but rather for concentration. When two people are together, they pay attention to only each other. At one point he asks Lucia "What's the point of sleeping with you if it doesn't get your attention?"
The biggest risk in the film is the voice-over. If it had failed, it would have pulled the entire movie down with it. DeeDee's lines are smartly written and delivered as she talks to the audience about the film. When a gun is shown, she tells us to pay attention to it, "Duh. It's foreshadowing."
DeeDee warns that "sex always ends in kids or disease or, like, you know, relationships. Maybe some of those are not always bad things.
(Michael Redman has written this column for, like, you know, about 23 years and he thinks that the opposite of sex might be, like, you know, boredom.)
[This appeared in the 7/16/98 "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at redman@bvoice.com]
-- mailto:redman@bvoice.com This week's film review at http://www.bvoice.com/ Film reviews archive at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman
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