Sex, Lies, and Videotape
by Steven Soderbergh
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DVD details
Actor: Andie MacDowell, James Spader, Laura San Giacomo, Peter Gallagher, Ron VawterDirector: Steven Soderbergh
Brand: SPADER,JAMES
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-10-06
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Sex, Lies, and Videotape
DVD Review: Incorporate This Film Into Your Collection
Summary: 5 Stars
Okay, I'm highly biased. This is my favorite movie of all time.
It's a moody movie, set in the South, where emotion and dialogue carry me (and probably you) to the end. It's so good that, for me, it has become "peanut butter fiction," as if it's always been a part of my life. When there's nothing else to watch, I'll put it in. And I'll wonder why I waited so long to watch Sex, Lies, and Videotape again.
I've spent some time trying to identify the protagonist of this film. As with many great films, our hero is not clear. We have Ann (played by Andie MacDowell), the popular southern girl who, about a year ago, married a promising lawyer, John (Peter Gallagher), recently made junior partner of his firm. John is secretly sleeping with Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo), Ann's sister. This situation would have gone on indefinitely, were it not for the arrival of Graham (James Spader). Graham is John's old buddy who is moving back to town and, with John's permission, will be staying at John and Ann's upscale home. Although logically Graham should turn out to be just like John--a deceitful man--we quickly discover that the opposite is True. "True" with a capital T.
Graham has changed since the old days. He's artsy, mysterious, immediately strange and likeable, and Truthful. John doesn't know what to make of him. The dialogue in this movie is perfectly revealing, for instance, when Graham explains how he insists on having a car. John finds a need for a car humorous: "In case you have to leave someplace in a hurry." Graham counteracts this observation by adding, "Yeah, or go someplace in a hurry." The first response indicates guilt, the second determination. Graham has come back to town for a reason.
John sends Ann apartment hunting with Graham, which provides John the perfect opportunity to have sex with Cynthia in the marital house while they are away. Unbeknownst to him, Ann and Graham share a connection. So we have either Ann or Graham as our "hero." Ann subconsciously suspects infidelity, and Graham has come to town to show "someone" that he has changed--and we the audience come to realize that he is specifically NOT being John, although years ago he and John were probably exactly alike. Graham is specifically not a liar. He is also impotent.
Sorry if you feel I'm forcing "spoilers" upon your eyes. I could give a treatment of this entire movie and still make it worth watching. So far, the only thing I've left out of Sex, Lies, and Videotape is the videotape. Graham may not be able to have sex with another person, but he can "get off." He makes videotapes. He videotapes women talking about sex, and if you were to ask him if this is how he achieves sexual satisfaction, he'd say matter-of-factly Yes. He sits in the living room of the apartment that Ann helped him find watching women talk about their sexual experiences.
Perhaps this movie would have fizzled at this point, with Graham out of the marital home, but for the sexually oriented Cynthia who hears about Graham and his strange habits. Once Cynthia visits Graham in his personal space, the conflict of the movie becomes intereseting. This is a movie with few, if any, visual effects. O Trust me when I say you don't need them. The story is enough.
How will John react to Cynthia visiting his ex-best friend? How will John react to Ann, who is slowly becoming wise? How will John react to the fact that Graham is the center of attention? Until Graham's arrival, John lived in a perfect world.
If you press me, I'll say the protagonist of this story is Ann, because the outcome of events MOST affects her, and she is likeable. At first I thought the protagonist was Graham. There is a part of me that considers that John is the most affected by the plotline, because his perfect situation is in danger of falling like sand out of the palms of his grubby hands. In any work of fiction, he whom is MOST changed by story events is our hero. You'll have to decide that for yourself.
I consider Sex, Lies, and Videotape to be "peanut butter" cinema. It's so good that you accept it as such; it's a staple of your refrigerator--er--your DVD shelf. It will wait to be seen, yearly, like Bob Clark's A Christmas Story. You can't watch it daily, but you'll want to. You can put it in your DVD player and do other things, occasionally tuning in for great dialogue and masterful plotting. But that's only after you've watched it too many times. The first time, you'll wonder why there aren't more movies like this. You'll wish you were a screenwriter. You might even sit down at a blank First Draft document. You might wonder why you can't make the words come, and when they do come, you wonder why you're such a plagiarist. Why didn't you write Sex, Lies, and Videotape first?
Description of Sex, Lies, and Videotape
A college friend working on a \very personal project" moves back to town and becomes involved with the lives of a philandering husband"Winner of the Palm d'Or and Best Actor awards at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, sex, lies, and videotape transformed the independent film industry and turned writer-director Steven Soderbergh into the envy of aspiring filmmakers everywhere. Sly, seductive, and coolly intelligent, the movie explores the sexual shenanigans and personal preoccupations of its four central characters, revolving around a selfish lawyer (Peter Gallagher) who responds to his wife by having an affair with her free-spirited sister (Laura San Giacomo). But when the lawyer's college roommate (James Spader) arrives for an unexpectedly extended visit, the neglected wife (Andie MacDowell) is surprisingly responsive to his seductive hobby of videotaping women as they describe their sexual fantasies. It's his way of compensating for impotence, but the curious wife considers this a sexual challenge, and Soderbergh turns sex, lies, and videotape into a fascinating chamber piece that puts a decidedly different spin on the consequences of infidelity. Balanced on a risky and finely tuned performance by Spader, the film delivers frisky passion and emotional intrigue, and yet much of its allure is found in the exchange of secrets and the hidden mysteries of sexual desire. --Jeff Shannon
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