Opposite of Sex, The
Sony Pictures Releasing | 105 mins
4.5
Sixteen-year-old Deedee runs away from Louisiana to live with her half-brother Bill, an English teacher who happens to be gay. Lucia, Bill's sexually-repressed best friend, distrusts her. These suspicions are confirmed when Deedee lures Bill's boyfriend into bed and talks him into stealing $10,000 from Bill and running away with her to Los Angeles. To make matters worse for Bill, his bitter ex-lover frames him for sexual harassment, causing a scandal in their quiet town. This forces him and Lucia to go on a wild chase in search of Matt and Deedee in order to clear his name. They are joined by Sheriff Carl Tippett, a friend, who begins to fall in love with Lucia. A black comedy about what people must go through in order to find "the opposite of sex" - lasting, committed, and loving relationships.
Fantastic performances and a snappy script make this a sizzling film with plenty of truth.
By
Margaret Pomeranz
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.
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