Virtual Sexuality 1999 Dir: Nick Hurran UK Cert 15 Runtime: 92 minutes
The term "bad" is often thrown at movies, but very few really deserve the term. I mean, a lot are dull, repetitive, unoriginal, but very few actually make you squirm in your seat, groan, or eye the exit with longing and, afterwards, leave a nasty taste in your mouth. "Virtual Sexuality" is one of them.
Based on a book by Chloe Rayban, and adapted for the screen by the film critic of the Sun (now there's a scary ending to a sentence), it's the heart-warming tale of a girl who wants to lose her virginity. The films opens to find Justine (17, played by Laura Fraser, 23) philosophising about losing her cherry; a sequence excruciatingly embarrassing to anyone over the age of 15. A rip-off of "Ferris Bueller", from the talking-at-the-camera bit down to the on-screen graphics, this sequence, with her bubbly girlishness and the cloying "hip" attitude of the film, is irritating beyond belief.. It takes a lot for a woman as cute as Justine to annoy me, but she manages.
We're introduced to her nerdy friend Chas (played by Luke de Lacy, aged 28). There's no reason why someone like Justine would be friends with someone like Chas, and indeed, they never act as friends in the film; in one scene, Justine is particularly nasty to him, is never sorry about it, but Chase nevertheless, puppy dog like, continues to follow her around. But hey, he's needed first as a plot device, since someone has to being her to a computer fair where an explosion during the use of a "virtual reality" machine turns her into a man. Or rather, creates a male alter-ego of her, called Jake. Don't look at me like that; I'm just relating it the way it was shown.
After this the film is thankfully amusing for a while; amongst all the drama-school mugging, only Rupert Penry-Jones brings a real comic touch to his woman-trapped-in-a-man's-body role of Jake. There's some funny scenes with Jake dealing with his new body, and new feelings; nothing you haven't seen before, but then in this film you'll clutch at anything that's entertaining.
Unfortunately Justine pops up again, and hilarious antics ensue (I wish), involving the owners of the virtuality machine who want to kidnap Jake in order to have sex with him, or examine him, or something. Anyway, it's just an excuse to fill an extra half hour with some explosions and car chases; for such a cheap looking movie, the explosions come often and loud, suggesting the money was spent in all the wrong places.
Justine ends up deciding against losing her virginity with her alter-ego, which would have at least been an interesting twist on Woody Allen's observation about masturbation. Before you think that somehow she has gone through a major life change, has realised the true meaning of love, etc, and that there was actually a point to this film, well, she pops up to cheerily announce she lost her cherry to Chas the nerd in a one-night stand. End of film, roll credits.
This presumably is what is meant to pass for a happy ending in the 90s. But this only happens after Chas removes his glasses and puts some hair gel and a leather jacket on ("Why, Ms. Jones, you're _beautiful_!"). I mean, god forbid Justine actually have sex with someone who _looks_ like a nerd - she still has some shallowness to maintain. Of course, this is a bit subversive - in these days of PC movies which tell you to be yourself, and that everyone is special in their own way, it's refreshingly reactionary to have a film which screams "CONFORM!" at you, and treats virgins and nerds with the contempt they deserve. It'd be interesting to see the director's cut, where Chas, who's obviously had a torch for Justine for years, has to deal with the fact he sold himself out so that Justine could use him like a piece of tissue.
It's hard to tell who this film is aimed at; the characterisation and style smacks of a "Children's ITV" series crossed with an Aussie soap opera, yet the nudity, and language seems to be aimed at an older audience. The characterisation is simple dire; the nerd is very nerdy (room full of computers, thick glasses, social retardism, virginity, no leather jacket), there's a slut, she's very slutty (blonde, tight dresses, orange tan, vampy accompanying music), there's a jock, he's very... well, you get the picture.
You could get away with this kind of characterisation in a broad comedy, but "Virtual Sexuality" isn't funny, and at times seems to think it's a drama dealing with real problems. It's mildly amusing in very few places, and excruciatingly embarrassing in the rest. The heroine comes across as shallow, bitchy, and unlikeable, and the male lead is a tiresome nerd who ends up comforming and gets used for his pains. I hope Justine at least paid for his hairgel.
Don't be fooled by the title; there's absolutely nothing erotic about the film, and it doesn't deal with the topics of how the new communications technologies are changing the way we view and acquire relationships (unless you actually think there _is_ a chance your PlayStation might blow up and change your sex). An absolute waste of celluloid.
P.
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