Love & Sex
USA 2000
Reviewed by Ronald McLean
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
In a school playground, young Kate Welles experiences her first romantic tryst, and a subsequent break-up, with classmate Bobby Norton. Years later, in present-day LA, Kate arrives late at the women's magazine where she works to discover she's been fired. Kate's editor says she'll be reinstated if she delivers upbeat copy by the end of that day.
Beginning work, Kate reminisces about past relationships. She recalls an exhibition where she dumped her date for artist Adam. Adam is later shocked to discover Kate has had 13 previous lovers, compared to his two. Kate remembers losing her virginity to her high-school French teacher, as well as her relationship with Eric, who turned out to have a wife and children. She moves in with Adam. On their first anniversary, Kate discovers that she is pregnant, but she later miscarries.
As their relationship loses excitement, Adam suggests they split up. Kate meets B-movie actor Joey, with whom she begins an affair. Adam is jealous and asks Kate to reconsider. She refuses, and holidays with Joey, but beyond physical attraction the two have little in common. She and Joey fall out in a cinema.
Kate decides her assignment is pointless and resigns. Preparing for a blind date, she ends up chatting up a Jehovah's witness. At his latest show, Adam rejects a fan's advances. Kate arrives, the couple reunite and end up in bed, still teasing one another.
Review
Like Stephen Frears' recent High Fidelity, Love & Sex opens with a sequence depicting its lead character's first experience of love. And like High Fidelity, this pre-pubescent prelude is a sweetly sad episode, that primes its protagonist, in this case Famke Janssen's journalist Kate, for the more crushing disappointments of adult love. But whereas in Frears' film the mood darkens as John Cusack's Rob fumbles from one relationship to another, the mood of debut writer-director Valerie Breiman's film doesn't stray from the light, somewhat fey tone of its opening moments. All of which makes for pleasant enough viewing - Breiman's screenplay has a few genuinely sharp one-liners (Kate witheringly dismisses one of her ex-partner's girlfriends as a "bimbo savante") - but the refusal by former actor Breiman (she had a part in John Hughes' 1988 film She's Having a Baby) to confront the messier adult realities of the dating game makes for a fairly banal experience.
Perhaps the film's most telling moment is an uncredited cameo by Friends star David Schwimmer. Diverting but lightweight, Love & Sex is reminiscent of a feature-length sitcom: the bulk of the humour is dialogue-driven and the characterisation broad (a basketball-playing fling of Kate's is obsessed with women's backsides; another boyfriend, actor Joey, is like his namesake in Friends dim but loveable). And as with television sitcoms, the film is mostly made up of interior scenes, although Breiman has some fun with the decor here: the bedroom of Kate's high-school French teacher, to whom she loses her virginity, is suitably seedy, and a poster for a low-budget action film Joey starred in carries the irresistible tag line: "It was a war no-one thought they could win... In a land no-one thought they could find."
To its credit, Love & Sex does feature two likeable leads: Jon Favreau, who starred in Swingers, to which this film is being pitched as a female equivalent, veers enjoyably between confident buck and wounded boy as Kate's on-off soulmate. Despite some tentative moments where she's torn between sniping and smouldering, Janssen relaxes into the role of the pointedly far-from-perfect Kate. Reflecting on her past failed loves, she concludes "Love is ecstasy and agony," but ultimately Breiman's film is far too innocuous, longing to be adored - like the kitten which wakes Kate up one morning, interrupting her dreams of wild sex - to deliver either of these two extremes.
Credits
- Director
- Valerie Breiman
- Producers
- Timothy Scott Bogart
- Martin J. Barab
- Brad Wyman
- Screenplay
- Valerie Breiman
- Director of Photography
- Adam Kane
- Editor
- Martin Apelbaum
- Production Designer
- Sara Sprawls
- ©Behaviour Worldwide
- Production Company
- Behaviour Worldwide presents a Bogart/Barab/ Wyman production
- Executive Producer
- Mark Damon
- Line Producer
- Michelle Ledoux
- Production Co-ordinator
- Dana Byal
- Location Manager
- Jill Naumann
- Assistant Directors
- Jonathan Southard
- David Montgomery
- John Vedder
- Script Supervisor
- Scott Peterson
- Casting
- Dan Shaner
- Michael Testa
- Additional Photography
- Jerry Sidell
- 2nd Unit Director of Photography
- Irv Goodnoff
- 2nd Unit Camera Operator
- Chris Walling
- Steadicam Operators
- Andy Shuttleworth
- Ron Baldwin
- Visual Effects
- Post Logic
- Scott McLain
- Graphic Design
- Angelik Martinez
- AM Design Studio
- Set Decorator
- Nancy Clements
- Original Artwork
- Paul Rafferty
- Mario Nunez
- Aaron Donovan
- Costume Designer
- Sara Jane Slotnick
- Costume Supervisor
- Shirley Kurata
- Key Make-up
- Luisa Abel
- Key Hair
- André Blaise
- Titles/Opticals
- Title House
- Music Editor
- Scott Kolden
- Score Mixer
- Christopher J. Roberts
- Soundtrack
- "Honeychild" - Eddi Reader; "It's Alright" - Phil Roy, "It's Alright" (instrumental version) - Heitor Pereira; "Giving" - Marc Ford; "Ladyfinger" - Convoy; "Bumpkin" - Dig; "Suffer Me" - Todd Thibaud; "Retro Sexy" - Chuckle Head; "Star Sax" - Steve Jeffries; "Under the Light of the Moon" - the Merrymakers;
- "Adrenalin" - Eric Caspar; "Go Down Easy" - Over the Rhine; "Carry Me" - Tim Easton; "Monster" - weaklazyliar; "Here's Lookin at You" - Convoy
- Sound Mixer
- Matt Nicolay
- Re-recording Mixer
- Dave Moorman
- Dialogue Editors
- Julie Finer
- Stephanie Flack
- Sound Effects Editor
- David Michael Erwin
- ADR
- Walla Group:
- Jeff Yesko
- Tom Hall
- Laura Young
- Mixer:
- Sean Keegan
- Foley
- Artist:
- Ed Steidele
- Mixer:
- Sean Keegan
- Animal Co-ordinator
- Brian McMillan
- Animal Trainers
- Kirsten McMillan
- Barbara Gordon
- Nicole Zuehl
- Cast
- Famke Janssen
- Kate Welles
- Jon Favreau
- Adam Levy
- Noah Emmerich
- Eric
- Cheri Oteri
- Mary
- Ann Magnuson
- Ms Steinbacher
- Josh Hopkins
- Joey Santino
- Robert Knepper
- Gerard
- Vincent Ventresca
- Richard
- Kristen Zang
- Savannah
- David Steinberg
- tiny man
- Elimu Nelson
- Jerome Davis
- Don Brunner
- police officer
- Yvonne Zima
- Kate aged 9
- Melissa Fitzgerald
- Melanie
- Rob Swanson
- blind date
- Will Rothhaar
- Bobby aged 9
- Rance Howard
- Earl
- Ron Kochevar
- man
- Angela Marsden
- Peaches
- Troy Blendell
- Frank
- Nicolette Little
- Michelle aged 6
- [Uncredited]
- David Schwimmer
- Rob, Jehovah's Witness
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Inkpen Film Distribution Ltd
- 7,394 feet
- 82 minutes 9 seconds
- Dolby
- In Colour