Screenwriter Don Roos, who wrote Single White Female and Boys on the Side has made his directorial debut with a film he wrote called The Opposite of Sex - and it`s a winner. Central to the story is Dedee, the most major cinema brat of recent times, played by Christina Ricci. She runs away from her Louisiana home to her half-brother Bill, played with quiet resignation by Martin Donovan. Bill is gay and he`s in mourning for his dead lover who left him quite a lot of money; he`s starting to venture into life again with stud Matt - Ivan Sergei - and he`s dealing OK with Lucia - Lisa Kudrow, his late lover`s sister. Then Dedee arrives, seduces Matt, claims he`s responsible for her pregnancy, and runs off with him and the ashes of Bill`s lover. She`s quite a piece of work, is Dedee.

Not only do we get Christina Ricci adopting the mantle of screen bad girl as if it fitted like a glove, we also get Lisa Kudrow with all the best lines which she whines out with relish. It`s (most probably) more cleverly written than it is directed, but Roos has brought something fresh and exhilarating to the screen with The Opposite of Sex; it`s cynical, it pre-empts our suppositions of where it`s heading and turns them back on us, and yet it is, at heart, a very humanist work. This is not so much a "hip" film as a clever exposition of post-modernism. All performances fit, they`re just right somehow, from the lugubrious Martin Donovan to Lyle Lovett`s sheriff, with Christina Ricci and Lisa Kudrow deservedly dominating. It has insight, this film, with lines you like to think about afterwards.