Viking Night: Sex, Lies and Videotape
By Bruce Hall
July 20, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
One of the pitfalls of writing about the types of films I do is that I usually find myself commenting on material that’s been previously picked over like a breakfast buffet at noon. By nature, this stuff is already coveted by a passionate core of fans and has been repeatedly analyzed by scores of competent reviewers. So, bringing new perspective to it all can be a pretty formidable thing and I generally find it best not to go that route. Instead, I like to try and present a personal perspective based on my own experience with the movie. No doubt you’re wondering what all this has to do with Sex, Lies and Videotape.
The truth is that in preparation for this article I asked myself what I thought I could say about this film that hadn’t been said before, and I couldn’t come up with much. I guess I might mug about how underwhelming Andie MacDowell often is, or rhapsodize about how it helped begin the golden age of independent film - but that would just be boring. Then it occurred to me that this was only the third or fourth time I’d seen this movie; the nuances of the story were so much clearer than the first time I saw it, when I was just trying to take it all in. That probably sounds nerdy, but if you’re not in the habit of watching a movie more than once, you should try it from time to time, because you almost never really see it the first time you see it. Multiple viewings of anything will almost always reveal little details that you failed to notice the first time around. Granted, this is a lot less effective with stuff like The Twilight Saga: Eclipse but with a more upscale title like Sex, Lies and Videotape, it makes the experience feel entirely new and if you’ve seen it only once, you really haven’t seen anything at all.
Often feeling like a play on film, Sex, Lies and Videotape is shot mostly in close quarters on practical locations with a very modest budget. This lends the film an intimate, voyeuristic tone reminiscent of the stage as it tears a page from the lives of its cast and lays it out like a tabloid. Its not unlike a lurid Tennessee Williams inspired reality show circa 1989. The four leads are tormented by outsized versions of common issues, but just like reality television and tabloids, what makes it so fascinating is the same reason we all have for casting stones at each other. I find it perversely amusing to criticize someone else for having a problem that you know you couldn’t solve yourself. It’s the sort of smug satisfaction we usually get from actually overcoming something, but without all the hard work and sacrifice. But by the end of Sex, Lies and Videotape – if you’re really watching – the joke is on us, as we realize that not only are all of these people not so different from one another, they’re really not so different from anyone else. The extreme nature of their afflictions is primarily a smokescreen for something much simpler; the almost pathological need we have to use dishonesty as a defense mechanism either by lying to others, or to ourselves.
Ann (Andie MacDowell) is a disaffected suburban housewife who feels constrained by her posh lifestyle, drained by her passionless marriage and who agonizes endlessly over starving children in Ethiopia. She lives a lonesome, unfulfilling life and buries herself in housework and therapy in order to cope. Her maddeningly oblivious sense of denial opens the film and immediately casts her in an unfavorable light – it’s hard to watch someone shake their head and deny the problems they know they have, but it happens every day and it makes for a stark and curious introduction.
Much has been made of Andie MacDowell’s acting ability (or lack of it, depending on your opinion) but her beguiling beauty and halting vocal delivery serves her well here. I am usually not a fan myself, but MacDowell wears Ann Bishop Mullany as comfortably as I wear my Doc Martens, to the point where it is difficult to tell whether or not she’s acting or just being herself. MacDowell is probably a bit more talented than her detractors think she is, but director Steven Soderbergh (this being his first feature film) has a knack for pulling latent ability out of his casts and somehow, some way, Andie MacDowell could not have been better cast. Yes I said it, I mean it, and I stand by it.
John (Peter Gallagher) is Ann’s husband, a pretentious, philandering swine who has just been promoted to junior partner at his law firm. He’s chosen to enjoy the fruits of his new position before he’s entirely earned his stripes, and spends his days carousing instead of working. You might say that a man who shops around on his wife has no respect for her, but how would you feel about a man who shops around on his wife with his sister in law?
Yes, John is an epic scumbag who is sleeping with his wife’s sister and has the nerve to pity himself, because his wife subconsciously seems to know there’s something off about him and his lover doesn’t betray her sister often enough for his liking. Like all the protagonists, John is a deeply flawed individual but Peter Gallagher savors the role the way one might a $50 steak dinner. He chews slowly and clearly enjoys every moment he’s on screen. There’s probably a lot of satisfaction in playing someone who does bad things, because you get to do deliciously evil things without really being evil. Yet despite this, there’s a tongue in cheek self awareness to John’s villainy that makes him surprisingly easy to tolerate. In fact the entire film shares his wily charm, defusing even the most controversial moments and making the entire experience a rare delight – but wait, there’s more…
Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo) is Ann’s sister, and John’s mistress. An extroverted wild-child who makes her living as a barmaid, Cynthia openly resents Ann’s beauty, popularity and good fortune and therefore wastes no opportunity to seethe about her older sibling. Rivalry between sisters is nothing new, but the glee Cynthia seems to take in defiling her sister’s marriage is a bit off putting, especially in light of the fact that the two women speak to each other daily. Ann seems to feel inherently more mature than her sister, yet allows herself to remain blissfully unaware of the affair that’s right under her nose.
Cynthia seemingly has no reason to be single other than the fact that she’s a bitter, vindictive harpy who can’t stand to see other people happy when she’s not. For this she blames Ann, and uses it as an excuse to ruin her sister’s life. This, too, is off putting, but the witty repartee between the two girls is captivating, and the fact that San Giacomo earned a Golden Globe nomination in her first feature role should tell you something about how convincing she is. Cynthia is a volatile woman and the venom, anger and sadness which she is required to display in rapid fire succession would be a tall order for anyone but like MacDowell, San Giacomo seems born for this role. But, the most interesting character in the film is yet to come and around him revolves the film’s central concept.
Graham Dalton (James Spader) is an eccentric drifter who lives out of his car, wears an unruly mullet and walks around in denim jeans and black, long sleeved cotton shirts in hundred degree weather. He has returned to his childhood home to tie up loose ends from a long gone past life. An old college friend of John’s, he drops in for a few days while he looks for an apartment and immediately strikes up a friendship with Ann. Graham’s inquisitive nature and quirky manner of speech mirror Ann’s peculiarities to the degree that their conversations soon resemble extended secular confessionals.
I can tell you from experience that when two people find it so immediately easy to be open, it foreshadows both wonderful things and wonderfully weird things. Graham and Ann are no exception to this. Despite looking like one, Graham is less an artist than he is a tortured introvert who desperately requires the company of others in order to inform them how much he’d rather be alone. And as he draws Ann into his world, he pulls her family in with her. Cynthia, always eager to interfere with anything that brings Ann contentment, notes her sister’s fascination with this man and makes it her goal to seduce him. John, who tends to treat people like furniture until he wants something from them, suddenly becomes possessive of his relationships when he discovers Graham’s influence. As all four – the doormat, the philanderer, the exhibitionist and the brooder – enter orbit together they discover that their problems and personal shortcomings are not as different as they appear to be on the surface.
Most of the controversy surrounding Sex, Lies and Videotape at the time it was released had to do with Graham’s somewhat deviant choice of hobby (the hint is in the title). While it is the sort of thing you don’t see everyday, the subject manner isn’t depicted visually as much as in some strikingly frank conversations between characters. The film’s tension is primarily derived from its dialogue as four seemingly different people cope with an appalling series of events destined to alter their lives forever. The sexually charged nature of the material is really a catalyst that highlights the similarity between the players, where the audience is most likely focused on their differences.
Not surprisingly, forcing four disparate people to shave the same 800 pound gorilla makes them a little easier to understand. John is well aware of his nature and seems the least surprised of everyone when his life begins to unravel. In a sense, the worst person in the movie is the one who seems the best suited for internal analysis. Ann’s ditzy mooning masks a woman who is more self aware than she first appears. Cynthia probably dislikes herself more than she does her sister and Graham, in his threadbare apartment with the blinds drawn, isn’t hiding so much from the world as he is from himself. They key is that everyone in this film is a liar to one degree or another and it’s implied to be the reason their lives are in such a moribund state when we meet them.
Many people mistake the film’s ending for resolution – we seem to think we know what’s going to happen to these people after the credits roll, but all we’ve really seen is their transition from one life phase to another. There’s no guarantee that Ann, John, Cynthia and Graham will still be where we’ve left them in five years, because there’s no guarantee that their shared crisis taught them anything permanent. It isn’t easy to look in the mirror and admit the ugly truth, and as a result it usually takes upheaval or catastrophe to shake us out of our self delusion.
What’s simpler is to be self-conscious about how we look, but its probably more valuable to be self conscious about who we are – and learning to do that is something we all grapple with. Sex, Lies introduces us to a group of people who have mainly themselves to blame for their struggles and it’s not very hard to pity or loathe them for it. But we’re all in denial about something, and learning to face it is painful, but well worth it in the long run. Here’s a variation on an old Russian proverb: "Lies can get you through something but they can’t get you past it." If you’ve seen Sex, Lies and Videotape several times, this is easy to see. If you haven’t seen it more than once – or haven’t seen it at all – its what you should think about when you do.