One of the most honestly hilarious movies in years

There is a line that cuts right to the core of what The Opposite of Sex is really about right at the end of the film. It is perhaps one of the best movie lines of all time. Matt (Ivan Sergei) says to Bill (Martin Donovan), "You don't get to make it better by being this really great guy that only likes the insides of people." Essentially, get off your high horse we all want someone beautiful, someone that we are attracted to physically. It's such a profound and yet subtle truth that I had to rewind the tape and listen to Sergei's spot-on delivery again. It sounds shallow, but within the context of the movie, it is so poignant and honest, you might miss it. Watch for that scene.

The Opposite of Sex is a scandolously funny black black BLACK comedy revolving around the effects of a 16 year old girl named Dedee (Christina Ricci). She ditches her newly widowed mother in Louisiana to live with her gay brother, Bill (Martin Donovan) in Indiana. He's a teacher with a bitter spinster best friend, Lucia (Lisa Kudrow) and a gorgeous idiot (supposedly) named Matt (Ivan Sergei) for a boyfriend. Once there she sleeps with Matt, gets pregnant, steals money, leaves with Matt for California, pi*ses of Lucia and sets Bill up as a pederast courtesy of Matt's jilted ex, Jason (Johnny Galecki) who was a former student of Bill's.

Sound complicated? It really isn't. It flows rather nicely and makes perfect sense on screen.

The Opposite of Sex requires an tremendously open mind. And not like most of the weird movies I review here, but this film has a sardonic voiceover (brilliantly done by Ricci) that calls you on what, most likely, you are thinking at any given moment. In introducing herself, Dedee says, "If you think I'm just plucky and scrappy and all I need is love, then you're out of luck. I don't have a heart of gold and I DON'T grow one later. Okay?" Later on in introducing Lucia's backstory, Dedee says "I know in movies you are supposed to feel sorry for girls like her, but in real life, you wouldn't be sitting next to her either." It's a tremendously ballsy move for writer-director Don Roos. He's making you hyperaware of not only your prejudices but the intersection of your prejudices. And he's calling liberals on their bleeding-heart mentality.

But the phenomenal thing about The Opposite of Sex is how it is many things and one thing at the same time. Its a dark comedy, its a road movie, it’s a crime story (a bit), and its a coming of age movie.

But most of all, its a love story. It's not about people finding a partner or settling down, its about people finding out what love is about and sharing it. It's a love story because it doesn't restrict love to male-female-get-married-picket-fence-2.3-kids love. It makes room for each character to experience love on their terms, even if their terms mature and change over the course of the film.

Writer-director Don Roos has constructed a very difficult film because it walks the line of being offensive throughout its entire running length. Dedee is a foul-mouthed harlot. And Bill is self-loathing (something gay men can't really be in our liberal movies today). But more than that he expects you to care for people who are vain, self-involved, and pretentious. He expects you to understand why the film unfolds the way it does and how it leads these people to a place where you can care about them. He expects you to be shocked and offended and pis*ed off a Dedee. And more than anything he wants you to think about who Dedee is and why she does what she does, and just why you might be laughing and/or offended by her voiceover and her actions.

The cast really holds the film together because in many ways the film is so didactic that the characters thin out.

Christina Ricci dominates it whether she's in the scene or not. She makes you see Dedee and all her flaws. Dedee is the loose cannon of the film. She affects everyone's life and inadvertently makes them face up to their hypocrisies and delusions. We are given motivation for Dedee actions so it is easier for us to stomach her, but Ricci humanizes and three-dimensionalizes her in every scene. Watch her closeups and her reactions. The restaurant scene where she wants bananas foster. The pool scene with Ivan Sergei's Matt. All of her scenes with William Lee Scott (who plays her ex-boyfriend Randy and damn well too) are phenomenal. Ricci got a lot of praise for this role and her ability to throw off the lines, but it is in these scenes and other scenes where sheis playing off the other actors in a look or a reaction, that is where the performance rings most true.

Would you believe I hadn't seen Friends when I'd first seen this movie? Watching Lisa Kudrow in this film made me wanna watch the sitcom. I couldn't believe she only played ditzes before this. Kudrow's construction of Lucia is meticulous and so endearing. Lucia is more than a spinster, Kudrow makes her lovesick, and confused by the idea and possibility of love. She does not understand why Bill loves Matt, but she thinks she does. Kudrow shows us that. The exasperated sigh. The sardonic quips. The looks she gives Bill when no one is looking. Kudrow is blessed with the best lines and she really really REALLY should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress. This is truly one of the best supporting performances in recent memory.

Martin Donovan has the hardest character in the movie because it forces the audience to identify with a gay character. A gay character who is out, relatively happy, and in love with a beautiful idiot. And he's a teacher. Roos makes it that we identify with a character that makes us uncomfortable. Also, Bill is the dullest character. He frequently doesn't even speak in scenes but just listens and reacts. It was probably a blast for Donovan to play, because he is so detailed. He raises an eyebrow, he turns his head, a sigh. We never loose track of where Bill is in any given point in the film and that is crucial for understanding not only Bill but every other character.

Lyle Lovett (yes..Lyle Lovett) and Johnny Galecki have small but crucial parts that aren't so much underwritten as they are archetypal characters. Lovett plays the good-hearted bumbling cop and Galecki is the comic relief. Both performances are good, but Galecki isn't given time to round out his performance.

I feel that the most underrated and overlooked performances in the film are given by Ivan Sergei and William Lee Scott. Don Roos is known for writing phenomenal female characters that dominate his films (Single White Female and Boys on the Side...two stellar films). And that is great, but these guys spend almost all their scenes with Ricci and they hold their own. Ivan Sergei gradually opens up his character over the course of the film until we get to his big scene with Donovan where the tension and chemistry and love just fills the scene. He knowsMatt isn't dumb, but he also knows no one cares because he is beautiful. It’s a truly great and overlooked performance. William Lee Scott is one of those character actors who is gonna be big one day. Like a William H Macy, he's been in everything (October Sky as Jake Gyllenhaal's abused friend, a stellar turn in the otherwise abominable James Toback flick Black and White, Gattaca, and just about the best thing on not thankfully defunct The Steve Harvey Show) and been nearly unrecognizable in every role. His Randy is a bundle of contradictions. Righteous and heathen. Violent pacifist. He brings pathos to Randy. Scott makes it known that of all the things Randy is, he is devoted to Dedee. It makes the character stick in your mind even though it is essentially 5 or 6 scenes.

Roos makes you feel for the characters in The Opposite of Sex . He dares you to put aside your prejudices and inhibitions. He challenges them and in the end...you do feel for these characters. Dedee says it in her voiceover, "and some of you even started to like me". You do. Because contrary to Dedee herself all she needs is love.


Rent The Opposite of Sex. Be shocked. Be offended. And then you'll probably know just what you really think about any number of issues.

5 stars.