EXIT TO EDEN
A film review by Raymond Johnston
Copyright 1994 Raymond Johnston
Director: Garry Marshall Starring: Dana Delaney, Paul Mercurio, Rosie O'Donnell, Dan Aykroyd Based on the novel by Anne Rice
Garry Marshall, who made a Cinderella story out of street prostitution (PRETTY WOMAN), was the obvious choice to convert Anne Rice's lurid S&M novel into a routine Hollywood comedy. His result with this material is not as good. Watching EXIT TO EDEN reminded me of switching between two movies, one a near remake of the Aykroyd comedy DRAGNET and the other an edited "erotic" film on USA Network's Up All Night. I had the feeling that when I switched from one film to the other I missed whatever good parts there might be. Both as a comedy and as an erotic film, EXIT TO EDEN is a failure.
Rosie O'Donnell and Dan Aykroyd play cops sent to a selective sexual fantasy resort. Aykroyd is, of course, a straight-laced prude. O'Donnell is at first portrayed as streetwise. Disappointingly, once on the island she is also a straight-laced prude. All of their funny scenes are in the advertisements. This, mathematically speaking, leaves over an hour and a half of failed jokes and missed opportunities. Early in the film police partners O'Donnell and Aykroyd make a good comedy team. For reasons that are never clear, Aykroyd and O'Donnell are split up on the island. This leaves them both flailing around looking for laughs in all the wrong places. Or in Aykroyd's case, just mostly looking lost.
The S&M erotic plotline involves Dana Delaney and BALLROOM DANCING's Paul Mercurio. The concept of S&M has been heavily sanitized for the film. The slaves perform chores around the island, and if they are lucky, get ordered to kiss Delaney's foot. The limp whipping that a few receive wouldn't make a cat hiss. There are a few campy moments of Dana Delaney being carried around by her slaves, but not enough to make this a camp classic. The few nude scenes of Mercurio and Delaney, considering the subject matter, come off as very tame. Most of the time Delaney is depicted giving lessons to middle aged house wives on how to spice up their sex lives. These lessons are played for comedy, but wind up, like the whole film, being neither funny nor erotic. One lesson has Delaney lead the housewives in how to talk dirty. An older woman says, "Put your thing in my thing." Unfortunately, that is one of the funnier jokes in the film.
The most annoying thing about the film is that O'Donnell and Aykroyd are sent to the island to recover a small object. All they have to do is ask for it. They never do. I suppose if they simply asked for it, then the film would have been over in five minutes. In retrospect that would have been better for everyone involved.
Several years ago Gerard Depardieu had much better luck in Barbet Shroeder's S&M comedy MAITRESSE. People interested in the subject matter would do better to seek out that on video. The STORY OF O was also filmed by the people that brought you EMMANUELLE, and is at least better than EXIT TO EDEN, but not much.
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