Starring: James Spader, Andie MacDowell, and Peter Gallagher
Reviewer: Brett Gallman
Reviewer's Rating: ***½ (Three and a half Stars)
Steven Soderbergh’s feature debut was a trailblazer for the American independent movement with its stark treatment of infidelity and sexuality. Two decades later, it’s still quite an incisive and explosive tale about Ann and John (Andie MacDowell and Peter Gallagher), a young couple who receive a visit from an old college roommate, Graham (James Spader). Ann is frigid, repressed, and sexually distant; meanwhile, John carries on an affair with her sister (Laura San Giacomo). The film tensely winds itself around these characters, with Graham acting as a sort of unwitting catalyst; he is the film’s most interesting character--a man with his own sexual hang-ups, as the only receives gratification from recording women discussing their sexual encounters. Spader delicately balances his somewhat predatory nature with a disarming charm--he tells us that he wouldn’t take his own advice, so we’re often left wondering just what his issues are.
He has many, of course, just as Ann does--it’s probably not a coincidence that these two are also the most sexually frustrated. MacDowell is somewhat frail in her portrayal, though one can sense her to be a sort of gathering storm. I’m not sure what I looked forward to more--her discovery of Peter’s infidelity, or the moment where she’d finally bare herself psychologically. In a film about sex, I guess it’s appropriate that the climax is intense and passionate, albeit not physical; Ann’s on-camera revelation is a psychological one, but it cuts into John more deeply, possibly because he realizes the superficiality of his own carnal existence. There’s something ominously karmic about his eventual fate, as if he’s being punished for his sins, which speaks to where the film’s sympathies lie.
Despite its edgy material, this is not a bleak film; it’s often very funny, and the dialogue between all of the actors is consistently delightful. Ultimately, I think this is a very traditional, Romantic film that cuts through modern neurosis to reveal the simple values of being able to communicate with someone and understand them.
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