Spanking the Monkey

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......

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.

This is a film whose title and poster not only give nothing away but actually mislead. The name Spanking the Monkey – a euphemism for masturbation – makes you think this must probably be a bawdy teen sex-comedy, while the poster depicts the picture of a real smart aleck. Both factors are bizarrely inappropriate, as the title, while mentioned once in the passing, is pretty much irrelevant, while the guy on the poster in no way reflects the character in the film who is anything but confident. Overall, this is a movie whose content is a very different proposition to its marketing. And perhaps that is because the material here is pretty difficult and challenging to say the least. I'm sure this must have stoked up some controversy in its day. After all, it deals with one of the ultimate taboo areas – incest; although, in this case it is admittedly of the consenting kind. It explores the troubling idea of the Oedipal Complex, via a sexual relationship between a mother and her son. It pulls off the impressive trick of simultaneously not pulling its punches, while still exercising a certain restraint. Material like this is so tricky that it needs very careful execution and David O. Russell, in his directorial debut, shows impressive ability to do just that.

It's about Ray, an introverted college student, who has a disastrous summer. He is coerced into looking after his bed-ridden mother by his uncaring, immoral salesman father. She is overly dependent on him not only physically but emotionally as well and soon is encouraging an unhealthy relationship. At the same time Ray is developing a very awkward relationship with a neighbouring girl and hanging out with old friends who antagonise him.

It's a drama about discomforts. Ray lives a life of humiliations at every turn. His father bullies him, his mother manipulates him, his girlfriend makes him feel sexually inadequate and his friends display little respect for him. Even his dog seems to antagonise him by constantly interrupting him while he has a, shall we say, moment with himself. It's a drama with a fair bit of black comedy sprinkled throughout. At heart it's about a very dysfunctional family. It works so well because of the characters and acting. Everybody is well-drawn and convincing, which is important given the extreme areas that the film explores. In particular, Jeremy Davies is really very good as Ray. He is definitely a sympathetic character who finds himself lost in a messed up situation that he struggles to find a way out of. Alberta Watson is also excellent in the role of his mother. She is an alluring presence and like Davies strikes the balance just right in what is also a very tricky and complex role.

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.

This film tends to reject the Hollywood made-for-TV oedipus complex (which is usually only expressed in undertones) scenario of a youth beset with confusion over his seemingly unhealthy relationship with his mentally ill mother, and his need to have a uncomplicated non-incestous relationship with Miss American Apple Pie. What we're presented with is a story of an independant young man who has dedicated himself to being unfettered by his emotionally distant, overzealous parents.

When his mother suffers a badly broken leg, he is called upon to take full responsibility for her care thru her entire recuperation. Very reluctantly, he is forced to acknowledge their authority yet again. He is immediately confronted with her immasculating condensations, but is unnerved by her very uninhibited demenor when under the influence of her prescribed pain-killers.

When me and my friend saw this, we were somewhat uncomfortable with the realistic candor of the actors portraying the mother and son. I can say this film, unlike any other I've seen elicits the nervous humor response far more effectively, and truly makes this worth seeing.