Review of sex, lies, and videotape (1989) by Jeffrey C — 02 Oct 2010

Sex, Lies, and Videotape is a modern day drama from director Stephen Soderbergh starring James Spader, Andie MacDowell, and Peter Gallagher.

The film starts off with Anne (MacDowell) in her therapists office telling how her husband (Gallagher) has invited an old friend, Graham (Spader), to stay at their house without her permission. She reveals to the therapist that her marital life is poor and then there is a cut to her husband having an affair with another woman who is later revealed to be Anne's sister. When Graham arrives he is not the old friend that John remembers because he changed quite a bit. Anne is instantly attracted to him because the fact that he is impotent and she feels that society as a whole values sex too much. It is then revealed that Graham videotapes women talking about sex and that is when all the sex, lies, and videotapes truly begins.

The writing for this film was truly original and deserves the Oscar Nomination it received. The script for this film has so much depth, you understand how the minds of the characters operate and that only happens rarely in films. The plot was intriguing the whole way through and the film had a sense of purity about it. The only thing I didn't like was the ending because it wasn't very memorable but for a film like this one it is about the ride it takes you on.

The acting in this film was quite good, MacDowell was excellent as Anne. She finely portrayed the qualities of innocence that Anne had and was easily the most relatable and sentimental character. Spader gave a solid performance as Graham also portraying innocence and an odd feeling about him. His performance could have been better, but he did just fine all the same. Gallagher gave a good performance as the husband having an affair, it is not an unusual role for an actor to have to play, and he did a good job at it but nothing extraordinary.

The direction of this film was very good which shows why Stephen Soderbergh is one of the biggest directors in Hollywood today. He had many complex shots and did a great job of letting the audience get to know the characters. He truly put together one of the greatest first feature films of any director.

The score for this film was outstanding, it was right in all the right places. It was sentimental, suspenseful, it was truly magnificent.

Overall I would give this film a solid 8/10, definitely just worth watching because it is Soderbergh's first feature film. I would recommend this to anyone who likes to watch genres or films with pure, raw emotion.