Spanking the Monkey

It's simply another one of the Greek myths retold in a modern setting. Those Greeks really knew how to write a cunning tale that cuts close to the bone. They wrote straight from human experience and feeling. Incest crept up on the young hero of the film with terrifying inevitability. They both knew what they were getting into, and went ahead even though they knew that they would subsequently experience "decision regret". A very enjoyable film that magically captures the passion of a summer holiday gone badly wrong.

Copying a tried and tested tale from the past is always a successful recipe for a good modern film, as Lucas has shown with borrowing from Homer's "The Iliad". This film is certainly capable of provoking strong emotion from the viewer, and I think that most of us would have a hard time resisting sexual advances in those circumstances if the woman in question was such a fox.

A compelling tale, made all the more sickening for it's overt basis in human experience.

Not one to watch with your mum (unless you fancy her!).

Considering the plethora of reviews here, both good and bad, there isn't much I can say that hasn't already been said. I will add that the first half works "reasonably" well, allowing viewers to understand perhaps how such a thing as an incestuous encounter could possibly happen. But then the film derails, and derails big time. The boy blames his mother completely for what they did, and the film seems to side with him despite the fact that it had previously shown us that he was just as guilty as she in the liaison. The film gets unspeakably ugly from there. The subject of consensual incest has been addressed by film only a few times over the years, always with unsatisfactory results---perhaps this is reflective of society's uneasiness with the subject. Consensual incest is about the only "sexual more" that is never discussed (even by psychologists), even though it likely occurs in real life with more frequency than we would like to believe.

The climax it where it's at in this movie; didn't see it coming the first time I watched the film. Plenty of nice shots and solid character development. Funny and at times painful to watch, but definitely makes you think. The characters are written well and are performed admirably by the cast (with an early role for Jeremy Davies).

Great movie to watch in the middle of the day, with the pacing slow relative to many movies. But it works, and it makes the payoff all the more rewarding. The interactions feel so real. This is as good as it gets for under $100,000.

Writer/director David O. Russell gives us a disturbing look at a dysfunctional family. Turn your head, Granny. Incest, masturbation, sexual impropriety and a family failing in communication, honor and respect. A promising pre-med student(Jeremy Davies) returns home from his freshman year at MIT to tend to his bedridden, mentally unstable mother(Alberta Watson)while dear old dad(Benjamin Hendrickson)is engaged with extended 'business trips' that allows him to practice adultery. Davies is caught up in a wad of sexual confusion. The family dog keeps interrupting the young man's attempts at self gratification. A young neighborhood girl(Carla Gallo)accuses him of rape after some heavy petting. Mom is attractive and needs some attention. The dutiful son ends up drinking with his mom and next comes the horizontal bop. This totally drives a stake into his secret fixation on his domineering mother. This dark comedy flirting with taboo subjects is disturbing as much as it is interesting. Now time to go spank the......

Given the budget limitations ($80,000), "Spanking the Monkey" manages to hold interest albeit with some poorly chosen scenes.

The core of the movie is the relationship between mother and son. The rest of the cast exists to point the way to the inevitable.

The philandering, materialistic, self absorbed husband/father illuminates the barren marriage.

The fumbling sexual attempts of the son with the girl next door and her contradictory accusations of his sexual attempts as either too rough or not rough enough (gay), understandably confuse the son and provide the mother with a mentoring, nurturing sexual role for her son about how to sexually succeed with women.

The mother, stumbling upon a bedroom sexual session between the son and the girl next door, reacts more in jealousy than in any maternally disproving fashion.

The mother's flirtatious ways with the male neighbors, doctors, and ultimately with the girl next door's father point out that while she may be her son's mother, she is still a very desirable woman in the eyes of the rest of the male world.

From the beginning through the end, you never believe the son and mother ever had a mother/child bonding. Both of them are intellectually superior, highly educated. The mother was young when she gave birth and she thinks of herself as her son's educational, intellectual and ultimately sexual mentor, not his mother.

The teenage son's inability to "spank his monkey" combined with the boredom, liquor and medications downed by his mother provide the explosive elements that are just waiting to be lit. The mother's seductive smile and a slight hiking of her nightgown set off the explosion.

This movie is nowhere near perfect, but it's compelling enough to let you sit through the unnecessary (e.g. stoner friends) and that's a lot more than you can say for most movies with a budget that is a thousand times greater.