Review #230: The Opposite of Sex (1998)-Special Queer Film Blog-A-Thon Edition
This review is for the Queering the Apparatus Queer Film Blog-A-Thon.
In my experience, Don Roos’s comedy, The Opposite of Sex, rarely shows up in discussions of gay cinema. However if it’s not about comic books and/or Passions I’m not well versed in it so I’m probably just not paying attention. It may pass under the radar because the biggest stars at the time of its release were Christina Ricci and Lisa Kudrow, both playing straight characters. That’s not to downplay Martin Donovan’s performance, but at the time Friends was in it’s hay day and Ricci hadn’t yet started looking like a creepy alien. It also doesn’t have a lot to do with many gay social issues but mainly the lives of these specific people. It might be because it has little or no eroticism in it, especially for a movie with the word “sex” in the title. The sexiest it gets is when Ivan Sergei’s character is swimming, right before Ricci’s character seduces him.
So what is this movie about? Basically a young woman Dede Truitt (Ricci) who runs away from her mom’s house to her half-brother’s house and causes trouble for everyone she comes across. She steals her brother’s boyfriend (Ivan Sergei), her brother’s dead boyfriend’s ashes (Collin Ferguson), extorts her bother for money a couple of times with the aid of the boyfriend (Sergei) and his ex (Johnny Galecki). Kudrow plays the sister of the dead boyfriend, commonly referred to as “Tom the dead guy” by Dede who is narrating the movie. There’s a lot of scandal, one-liners and road trips.
I am now going into bullet mode. This helps me out when I have points to make but can’t organize them into paragraphs.
What was cool
- The one liners are great in this movie, from “Teachers need to learn, no means no…at least until we’ve dropped out,” to “There are a lot nicer people coming up. We call them losers.” A lot of these quotes can be found here.
- The best lines are delivered by Kudrow. Her portrayal of an exasperated woman with pent up frustration that must be let out because of the arrival of this trouble maker is thoroughly entertaining. She’s one of those people who complains all the time, but it’s fun because she’s mostly only complaining about Dede and not you.
- Dede says at the beginning, through narration, “I don’t have a heart of gold and I don’t get one later.” It’s so true, she plays a skeezy, scheming bitch the whole time. It’s great!
- Donavan’s character, Bill, delivers a small speech that had quite an effect on me when I first saw this film. Check out this video, about 2:30 into it.
What was lame
-Lyle Lovett’s performance was very difficult to watch. The man cannot act. I feel he was thrown in there only as a romantic interest for Kudrow’s character so everyone could have a happy ending.
-The last seconds of the movie leave us wondering if Dede did, in fact, grow a heart of gold. I like to think she didn’t.
I sure wish this was more thought out and stuff, but it’s getting so close to midnight. I have to post it now! At least I did this instead of homework. Come back for more reviews of stuff and maybe a more thought-out edition of this one.
