# Opposite of Sex, The (1998)

### reviewed by
Nathaniel R. Atcheson

    The Opposite of Sex (1998)

Director: Don Roos Cast: Christina Ricci, Martin Donovan, Lisa Kudrow, Lyle Lovett, Johnny Galecki, Ivan Sergei, Colin Ferguson Screenplay: Don Roos Producers: Michael Besman, David Kirkpatrick Runtime: 105 min. US Distribution: Sony Pictures Entertainment Rated R: strong language, sex

By Nathaniel R. Atcheson (nate@pyramid.net)

The Opposite of Sex features a lot of loveless intercourse between various people of various sexes. It also features an array of crimes and acts of violence, including murder, robbery, breaking and entering, and battery. I've seen most of this material before in many different films, but it all feels fresh and original in this particular movie. That might be because writer/director Doug Roos has taken such an intensely cynical angle on his material that even the narrator herself knows how cliched all of this stuff could be.

Of course, it helps that Christina Ricci is the narrator. Ricci is a talented young actress, and there's not a woman out there whose voice oozes more cynicism than hers. In fact, she's so sarcastic so much of the time that I wonder if she's capable of sincerity. I don't think she has yet had to play a role that forced her to show a normal set of emotions, and The Opposite of Sex is no exception: here, she plays sixteen year-old DeDee, a girl who goes to destroy the life of her half-brother just to score a few bucks, and maybe pick up a boyfriend along the way.

The half-brother, Bill (Martin Donovan), is a gay high school English teacher; with him lives his boyfriend, the dumb-but-pretty Matt (Ivan Sergei). When DeDee comes to visit, she immediately destroys the household -- she convinces Matt that he's not gay, and from that point they regularly engage in sex. She then informs Matt that she's pregnant, and convinces him to run off with her and leave Bill. Then, Bill goes searching for them, and finds . . . wow, what a complicated story this is. I didn't think much about it as I was watching the film, but Roos has written a series of events that best be described as unpredictable.

It's always entertaining to watch these events unfold, and the entertainment value of the film is helped along nicely by DeDee's mean-spirited narration. She plays jokes on us, and points out the obvious, and makes fun of us just when we're suppose to care about what's happening. The film is uproariously funny; perhaps the funniest sequence is a series of shots in which we see Bill looking very depressed after he finds that Matt has left him. DeDee's voice soon comes in, and then she tells us that it's silly for us to feel the way we do, and that the scenes we're seeing are nothing but manipulation of the audience.

I kind of felt that Roos did this just to cover up the fairly routine story, but I resolved my worries knowing that it really doesn't matter. The story is interesting enough, and that he adds this kind of rare humor and wit to the material is truly refreshing. He even nears the boundaries of film in a scene or two -- there's a scene towards the end that turns out to be a joke, and while I'm not sure that this is within the Rules of Cinema, I sure enjoyed watching it.

But wit can only go so far without a little bit of emotional resonance, and Roos easily manages that by giving us an assortment of interesting and colorful characters. Ricci is, as I said, terrific, and, as her character points out, DeDee kind of grows on us by the end, even if she is an acidic bitch. Donovan is superb -- he layers his character with verbal and physical subtleties, and is ultimately very convincing in the role. Sergei is adequate as the profoundly dumb boyfriend, while Johnny Galecki has fun going over-the-top as Matt's secret boyfriend. Most interesting is Lisa Kudrow, who plays Lucia, a stiff friend of Bill's. Lucia is adamantly opposed to sex, but that's mostly because she's never had it. Kudrow is fascinating here, and paints a colorful portrait of the most interesting character in the film.

But what is this film about? Well, I think Roos has some interesting things to say about the human need for sex. I'm not going to pretend that my hypotheses are even close to what he was thinking, but The Opposite of Sex had me fascinated all through its running time, and then beyond that. It's rousing to watch a film that is both hilarious and provocative at the same time; sadly, a good sense of humor and a good sense of intelligence rarely go together in today's comedies. So, my final words to you are simple: see The Opposite of Sex if you want a little substance to back up the laughs.

    ***1/2 out of ****
    (8/10, B+)

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               Nathaniel R. Atcheson

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