The Opposite of Sex
USA 1998
Reviewed by Andy Medhurst
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Teenager Dedee Truitt runs away from her Louisiana home, helped by her boyfriend Randy. She goes to Indiana to see her schoolteacher half-brother Bill, who lives with boyfriend Matt but is still grieving over his dead lover Tom. Dedee seduces Matt, confirming the low opinion already held of her by Lucia, Tom's sister. Telling Matt she is pregnant by him, Dedee persuades him to steal $10,000 from Bill and run away with her to LA.
Jason, a jealous ex-lover of Matt's, is so angered by Matt's departure he accuses Bill falsely of sexual harassment. Bill is suspended and becomes the target of local hostility. To try and clear his name, he goes to LA with Lucia in search of Dedee and Matt. They are followed by Carl, a sheriff from Indiana who secretly loves Lucia. Bill finds them, but Dedee tries further extortion, threatening to destroy Tom's ashes (which she had stolen earlier). Though she has married Matt, Randy (the baby's real father) reappears and runs off with Dedee. Carl and Lucia become closer. Randy and Dedee have a violent row and she accidentally shoots and kills him.
Matt and Dedee are reunited and flee to Canada. They enlist Jason for another blackmail attempt on Bill, but Bill refuses to pay and instead sets off after them, followed by Lucia and Carl. At the Canadian hideaway, Bill and Matt are reconciled but agree to part. Dedee almost dies giving birth, but both mother and baby survive. Dedee gives the baby to Bill while she does time in jail. Carl and the now-pregnant Lucia are an item and Bill finds romance with Dedee's parole officer. After her release, Dedee plans to venture off alone, but seems to hesitate...
Review
A potent cocktail of scandalous comedy and challenging sexual politics, The Opposite of Sex is a delight on every conceivable level. It falls short of perfection only by failing to include a few spikey dykes. The story twists and hisses like a rattlesnake, the dialogue is almost arrogantly smart and sharp, the values it espouses deliver a stinging slap in the kisser to every brand of moralising conservatism. And amid a uniformly excellent cast there is a central performance of jaw-dropping virtuosity from Christina Ricci, who with this film establishes herself as beyond question the finest actor of her generation. In her awesomely mature hands (she was only 17 when the film was made), Dedee becomes so much more than the monster she might have been. She's a streetwise vigilante in the sex wars, lashing out not from abstract vindictiveness but because that's how to survive in a world run by dumb men who keep their brains in their pants. Dedee is fully aware that her white-trash background means her intelligence will never be taken seriously, so she determines to succeed by unconventional means.
Writer-director Don Roos is clearly besotted with Dedee, to the extent that the film visibly droops when she's off-screen. He gives her lines so blissfully barbed that they draw blood every time. Many of these, in the film's biggest formal gamble, are in the form of Dedee's teasing, deceiving voice-over which toys with audience expectations much as Dedee toys with men. She lays out the whole story before us, warning early on that, "I don't have a heart of gold and I don't grow one later," tricking us with false sequences that are then corrected by what 'really' happened, and issuing splendidly biased pronouncements on life, love and interior design. At one glorious point she tells women in the audience that if their boyfriends groaned at a gay male kiss, then they're most likely closet cases themselves. No wonder, despite the film's unsparing humour at the expense of certain homosexual sensitivities, the American gay audience has elevated Ricci to heroine status.
It isn't entirely a one-woman show. Lisa Kudrow dispels the suspicion that nobody from Friends can act outside the confines of that sitcom, turning Lucia into an impressively complex character. She memorably labels Dedee "the human tabloid", before her icy, snobbish anxieties are softened by circumstance. Her admission to Bill that she fears giving in to emotions is the film's best Ricci-free scene. Ivan Sergei captures Matt's essence as someone so widely regarded as gorgeous he never needs to turn his brain on, while Johnny Galecki (Darlene's put-upon boyfriend in Roseanne) whines and snipes as an irresistibly weaselly blackmailer, perfectly pinpointing the snide petulance of a certain type of smalltown queen. The film scores a probable first in having one of its important plot developments hinge on his body piercings.
The film's moral centre, as opposed to the amoral earthquake epicentred in Ricci, is Bill, who could have been one of those sexlessly dull gay men Hollywood deems a 'positive image'. Happily Martin Donovan steers judiciously past that trap, demonstrating by his response to neighbourhood prejudice just how mealy-mouthed In & Out really was. When bricks come through his window, he turns them into a rockery. Way to go, girl, as I believe they say on Ricki Lake. He even gets to end up in the film's concluding romantic couple, a telling example of just how brazenly this film sets out its political stall. Queers stay happy, marriage is just a label, the only rules that matter are the ones that suit you and your loved ones, and preachy Christians end up shot dead - not a bad message for a mainstream film. Stir into that brew the phenomenal Ricci and you have not only the most fabulous film I've seen since The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert but also the best riposte to Tony Blair's 'focus on the family' imaginable.
Credits
- Producers
- David Kirkpatrick
- Michael Besman
- Screenplay
- Don Roos
- Director of Photography
- Hubert Taczanowski
- Editor
- David Codron
- Production Designer
- Michael Clausen
- Music
- Mason Daring
- ©Rysher Entertainment, Inc.
- Production Companies
- A Sony Pictures Classics release of a Rysher Entertainment presentation of a David Kirkpatrick/Michael Bosman production
- Executive Producers
- Jim Lotfi
- Steve Danton
- Production Co-ordinator
- Andrew J. Sacks
- Unit Production Manager
- Jim Lotfi
- Location Manager
- Kai Ephron
- Post-production Supervisor
- David Codron
- Assistant Directors
- Steve Danton
- Susan Hellman
- Script Supervisor
- Rebecca Robertson
- Casting
- Amanda Mackey Johnson
- Cathy Sandrich
- Voice:
- Joyce Kurtz
- Joyce's Voices
- Los Angeles Associate:
- Liz Lang
- New York Associate:
- Mercedes Danforth
- Steadicam Operator
- Kenneth Ferro
- Set Designer
- Andrew Reeder
- Set Decorator
- Kristin V. Peterson
- Costume Designer
- Peter Mitchell
Costume Supervisor- Shawn Barry
- Key Make-up Artist
- Sergio Lopez-Rivera
- Key Hair Stylist
- Daniel Curet
- Titles Design
- Peter Soikkeli
- Musicians
- Guitar:
- Duke Levine
- Electric Bass:
- Paul Bryan
- Clarinet/Saxophone:
- Billy Novick
- Acoustic Bass:
- Marshall Wood
- Drums:
- Bill Reynolds
- Piano:
- Chris Neville
- Laura Ahlbeck
- Violin:
- Stuart Schulman
- Trombone:
- Dave Harris
- Trumpet:
- Greg Hopkins
- Keyboards:
- Mason Daring
- Shane Koss
- Swing Orchestration
- Billy Novick
- String Orchestration
- Dana Bratton
- Music Supervisor
- Randy Gerston
- Music Editor
- Brent Brooks
- Music Co-ordinator
- Amy Rosen
- Music Recordist/Mixer
- Dave Shacter
- Soundtrack
- "Lookin' for Love" by Hank Hunter, Stan Vincent, produced/arranged by Mason Daring, performed by Jeanie Stahl; "Pilot Mode" by/performed by Mason Daring; "For Another Clown" by/performed by Shane Koss, Adrian Hierholzer
- Sound Supervisor
- Trevor Jolly
- Production Sound Mixer
- Jon Ailetcher
- Additional Audio
- Kim Waugh
Re-recording Mixers- Gerry Lentz
- J. Stanley Johnston
- Recordist
- Eric Flickinger
- Dialogue Editors
- Trevor Jolly
- André Bacha
- Arthur Farkas
- Sound Effects Editors
- Scott Sanders
- Frank Gaeta
- Mark Choi
- ADR
- Recordist:
- David Spybrook
- Mixers:
- Ron Bedrosian
- Jackson Schwartz
- Editor:
- Kimaree Long
- Foley
- Artists:
- Catherine Harper
- James Moriana
- Mixer:
- David Alstadter
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Gary Wayton
- Cast
- Christina Ricci
- Dedee Truitt
- Martin Donovan
- Bill Truitt
- Lisa Kudrow
- Lucia Dalury
- Lyle Lovett
- Sheriff Carl Tippett
- Johnny Galecki
- Jason Bock
- William Lee Scott
- Randy
- Ivan Sergei
- Matt Matteo
- Megan Blake
- Bobette
- Colin Ferguson
- Tom Dalury
- Dan Bucatinsky
- Timothy
- Chauncey Leopardi
- Joe
- Rodney Eastman
- Ty
- Heather Fairfield
- Jennifer
- Amy Atkins
- TV reporter
- Leslie Grossman
- girl student
- Emily Newman
- Marcia
- Harrison Young
- medical examiner
- Pancho Demmings
- police officer
- Terry L. Rose
- Harley man
- Richard Moore
- Harley man 2
- Susan Leslie
- Judy Zale, policewoman
- Margaux St. Ledger
- reporter
- Leslie Bevis
- World News reporter
- Nicole Tocantins
- Bobette's lawyer
- Becky Wahlstrom
- cashier
- Peter Spears
- Doctor Allen
- Kristine Keever
- nurse
- David Phelps-Williams
- school principal
- Todd Eckert
- parole office
- Joyce Kurtz
- Linda O. Cook
- Malcolm Groome
- Tim Dornberg
- Robert Clotworthy
- Tina Hart
- group voices
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- Columbia TriStar Films (UK)
- 9,081 feet
- 100 minutes 54 seconds
- Dolby
- Colour by
- FotoKem