THE CENTER OF THE WORLD
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Artisan Entertainment Director: Wayne Wang Writer: Story by Wayne Wang , Miranda July, Paul Auster, Siri Hustvedt; Screenplay by Ellen Benjamin Wong (pseudonym) Cast: Molly Parker, Peter Sarsgaard, Carol Gugino
Hey, I'm a dotcomer who founded a major organization-- how come I haven't made my first million like all those 23- year-olds running around in Silicon Valley? Could be that I was influenced by all those articles that took pity on computer geeks, people whose only contact with the human race is with the white letters that pass across their blue computer screens. I guess I preferred to spend more time at the movies with people who shared my love for cinema rather than sit in the bedroom or the "home office" living room peck- peck-pecking throughout the day and night. Yeah, that's it I think. Along comes Wayne Wang ("Smoke," "The Joy Luck Club," "Blue in the Face") with a striking and, dare I saw sexy, movie about such a geek, a kid in his early twenties who by the end of the story has 20 million dollars but is not really happy. You see, despite his good looks, his aw-shucks charm, his gentle manner, he doesn't have a girl friend (yeah, right) so he thinks he has to buy sex. Wang's latest, "The Center of the World" acquires its title comes from the area of the anatomy to which Richard Gere's character Dr. T. dedicates his career, an area considered so vital to the cutting-edge businessmen in the Bay Area that they inevitably take their clients to San Francisco's upscale strip joints such as the one cited in the story, Pandora's Box. According to the voluminous press notes for this film, a considerable amount of business gets completed under the persuasive influence of lithe young women who know their way around laptops--and we don't mean computers. If you haven't guessed yet, this movie is about sex, a subject about which Mr. Wang states he was determined to make, having given us some other down-to-earth, authentic human relations stories like "Blue Smoke"--which is about intertwining lives around a Brooklyn smoke shop including a philosophical manager, a burnt-out novelist, and a worldly-wise teen.
Only a fraction of the film takes place in Pandora's Box, which is fine, because Wang gets a lot of action in the capacious suite of a 5-star Las Vegas hotel rented for three days by a disarmingly unpretentious young multimillionaire, Richard Longman (Peter Sarsgaard). Richard, who spends all his waking hours in his room surrounded by three computers, would like to believe his virtual relationships are all he needs. He gets whatever goods he needs by punching in a few letters (presumably like drugstore.com and netgrocer.com) but he knows something is missing. Fascinated by the gyrations of a stripper in a club, Florence (Molly Parker), he invites her to spend a weekend with him in a Vegas suite, which she accepts but not until she gets his agreement to some pretty rigid rules. No penetration, no kissing on the mouth, working hours are 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. only, separate bedrooms. "I don't do sex for money," she insists, and with a list of regs that resemble the complexity of the Magna Carta, he agrees. And he pays her $10,000--not bad if you can get it.
Filmed in digital video, giving sharp colors when needed and more earthy tones for the closeups, cinematographer Mauro Fiore directs his camera on the games these two people play, to the way they silently or overtly re-negotiate the terms of the agreement as two lonely people out on a business weekend actually get to feel something for each other. Will she or won't she? This is the most pressing question, although on a broader level, of course, we're all wondering whether somehow Richard and Florence (or Flo, when she's performing just for him between 10 and 2) will finally break through their sequestered selves--she, who not surprisingly feels alone and unconnected when on the stage, he, when he's pecking away on his three computers or even when he's talking about a lucrative business in which he has amazingly lost interest.
But we in the audience don't lose interest, not if we have normal libidos at any rate and not if we have the capacity to care about two people who could--give or take a few million and, perhaps, lose the stage and the night club and substitute a cubicle at the local accounting firm--be any of us! The 51-year old Hong Kong-born director, equally at home portraying Chinese culture as he is at depicting the cutting- edge techno society here in the States, gets nice performances from Parker and Sarsgaard and also from Carol Gugino who performs in the role of Florence's friend Gerri, the young woman who allows Richard to get to know more about his new friend than he would if he were interested (like some men I know) only in the center of the world.
Not Rated. Running time: 86 minutes. (C) 2001 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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