Sexe, mensonges & vidéo

Why does Graham prefer iced tea so much? He offers it to Ann when she visits him for the first time at his apartment. Does the same when Cynthia pays him a visit. When he and Ann are having their first real conversation in the restaurant there's a glass of iced tea next to him, while Ann has a glass of white wine. Besides being a probable leitmotif, it's something that, seems to me is a part of Graham's character. He comes to live in that town to get away, to find a closure to his past. He ends up providing closure to the lives of these three characters. Let's imagine a scenario sans Graham - a phase in the life of a woman whose husband is having an extra-marital affair with her sister. She's suspicious but he denies. She finds evidence to prove that he's having an affair with her sister and decides she's had it, she's leaving her husband. Do you think this might have been the conclusion of this scenario? I think not. As Ann rightly says to Graham, that she would have left her husband anyway, but the reason she's doing it now, is because of him. She thinks sex is overrated, her sister seems to believe in the opposite and here comes a man whose profession, for all practical purposes is having women talk about sex. Ann's therapist is a foil to Graham. While he dispenses his advice and listens patiently to Ann, Graham is the all important catalyst that helps her make a practical decision in her life. He also aids in her real sexual awakening. Before Graham, sex, for Ann was incidental. Now it takes on a different perspective.

One might say that in making women talk so intimately to him about sex, he sort of breaks the ice on a topic that is more or less socially tabooed. His is a presence that evokes trust in the most introverted of women, making them confide in him and by doing so have an almost cathartic experience. I think the iced tea motif of Graham's character fits in here. Beyond his trademark black-shirt, blue denim attire, it is the only other element related to him that is conspicuously stated. That's my conjecture anyway!

Needless to say, James Spader is superb as Graham. He manages to evoke many of the nuances of Graham's character by subtle, volatile facial expressions. Andie McDowell is also great as Ann. Hers is a really sensitive and touching performance. Peter Gallagher and Laura San Giacomo are both equally good. The music for this film is appropriately minimal and poignant. Great effort by Soderbergh, who I'm glad to hear has come back to his experimental film roots with his recent film 'Full Frontal'.

"The last time I was happy, I got so fat."

If you chuckle during Andie MacDowell's famous line in Sex, Lies and Videotape, you'll probably think of her sister, Laura San Giacomo as the lead. If you laugh yourself silly, knowing Andie's confession is also true for you, you'll probably think of her as the lead. My weight has always been a direct correlation of my happiness, so that line been added to my household phrases!

If you've never seen it, you'll have to put on your 1989 goggles before renting Steven Soderbergh's breakthrough indie movie. By today's standards, this movie is tame. In 1989, it was shocking and actually considered quite nasty. It was a time before the internet, before photos and videos were constantly taken and spread around, and a time when movies didn't always show nudity and graphic sex scenes. By today's standards, it's not really an oddity if a young man prefers to film and watch sexual encounters rather than to participate in them, but in 1989, James Spader's character was very unusual. Just like most photographers or videographers, he uses the lens to distance himself from situations. He asks people questions about their sexual experiences, and when the women answer him honesty, it's supposed to be very daring. It was daring in 1989!

The other part of the plot is a love triangle involving the dreamy Peter Gallagher. He's married to Andie, but having an affair with her sister, Laura. I've played Laura's part in two separate college reproductions, so I've studied the script probably far more than the average viewer. There's quite a bit to analyze in Soderbergh's script, which film students have been discussing for thirty years. It's a bit of a love-it-or-hate-it movie, so if you watch it and shrug, don't feel like you're missing something. There are plenty of people who think it's overrated and weird, just as there are plenty of people who think it's a staple in indie movies.

Throughout, I felt like a fly on the wall at a psychiatrist's private session with a client. One character asks another an intimate question; the second character responds. Then someone asks another question, to which a low-key response is given, and on and on. I don't recall a movie wherein characters ask each other so many nosy, intimate questions. With its voyeuristic theme, this film gets just a tad too personal for my taste.

Four attractive, thirty-something yuppies, two males and two females, with nothing on their minds but sex, ask, probe, inquire, explore, and poke around each others' psyche, spurred on by one of the male characters (James Spader) who likes to videotape sex interviews with women. Fortunately, Spader gives a convincing performance, one that renders the story credible, if the viewer is interested in this sort of thing.

It's a modern story, similar in some ways to "Carnal Knowledge" (1971), but more up-to-date with the video technology. Scenes are filmed mostly in interiors, which gives the story a claustrophobic feel and a sense of intimacy. We get to know the four characters, maybe a little more than I would have liked. All of them are flawed and therefore very human. The Peter Gallagher character is a scoundrel and easy to dislike. The two women are sisters and very unlike, one an uptight introvert, the other a rather salacious extrovert.

The plot is slow, with long camera "takes". The script is talky. Dialogue trends too on-the-nose at times. The camera is rather static and unobtrusive. I didn't like the grainy visuals of the taped interviews.

Low-budget and very low-key, "Sex, Lies, And Videotape" will appeal to viewers who like films wherein characters talk a lot about sex. There's not much "action". But all that erotic talk substitutes for action. Which is really the whole point of the film.

A strange, but very rewarding movie. Soderbergh has went on to create many wonderful films since "Sex, Lies and Videotape" but what has captured my attention about this film is his how he kept the film simple and concentrated on the details around the four characters. He mentions in the commentary of his influence of Eric Rohmer (who created the popular films as part of his "Six Moral Tales") and the long dialogue between characters. Maybe it made no impression to me back then but now, any director who can have their characters engage in dialogue with meaning and profoundness is wonderful.

Andie MacDowell was the surprising star because in the beginning, I thought she would be the typical jilted housewife but we see her character emerge as one that is confused to one that finally gains perspective. Laura San Giacomo did well in portraying the free-will Cynthia (which she would go on to do again in "Pretty Woman"), John Mullany (Peter Gallagher) was the ultimate sleezeball and for Graham (Spader), his character was mysterious and although the viewer doesn't know exactly what had happen to him, it's how the character was changed after changing the character he videotaped. As the film itself, one can see how this independent film helped revolutionize indie films and allowing media coverage. Sure, we see independent films, art-house films receive media coverage today but in the context of independent films getting seen by a wide audience, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" was definitely instrumental in being part of that small group of films that Hollywood would give a chance to.

Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

Spader's character was the reason I enjoyed the film so much. I could identify with him and his dilemma. It seemed he felt like a stranger in an even stranger land. Who were these humans that seem so happy in the same world he could not find happiness within? What is this life we live? More importantly, what is the point? Why bother? His great battle with existence was a philosophical one. He, like myself, felt infinite sadness over the knowledge that are no concrete answers...

The movie is also interesting because it attacks the main sexual organ, the mind. Graham while trying to distance himself from the human experience by capturing sex confessionals on videotape, perhaps unwittingly became more intimate with his "partners." Roger Ebert points out that the films' argument is that conversation is better than sex.

Personally, I think the movie is about trying to find happiness with another person. Some Modest Mouse song lyrics come to mind. "And it's hard to be a human being/ And it's harder as anything else/ and I'm lonesome when you're around/ I'm never lonesome when I'm by myself" Graham finds it hard to be a human being and live in this human world full of values that he finds strange, confusing, and most importantly unfulfilling. What do you do when your ideology and needs don't mesh in the society you live within? How does one deal with feelings of loneliness in a society that spurns him? This movie is about one man's way.

James Spader does such an excellent job as this character. In fact, great acting all around by the entire cast and excellent writing and directing by Mr. Soderbergh. Go see this movie now!