The Opposite of Sex: Movie Review, DVD Review (1998)

9/20/2007 Posted by Admin

Her tantalizing tantrum

(Originally published 1998)

Written and directed by Don Roos, 100 minutes, rated R. Grade: A-

As Dedee Truitt, the tough-talking, booze-swilling, 16-year-old tramp in Don Roos’ “The Opposite of Sex,” Christina Ricci is devastating, tossing away her knickers in favor of six-inch stiletto heels, a smart, gutsy career move that carries the former child star fully into adulthood--and into a future filled with the promise of smoking guns, bedroom brawls and lipstick-smeared kisses.

Taking her excellent performance in “The Ice Storm” to even greater, racier lengths, Ricci shocks in “Sex” with a sexuality that smolders in spite of her 18 years. Her world-weary Dedee is brazen and ballsy, a gun-toting femme fatale who wears her makeup like a bruise and who delights in dragging those around her down into an unforgettable pit of hell.

With her dishwater-blonde hair and baby-fat body, she is more than simply the undisputed queen of trailer-trash; indeed, she is Lolita with a bustline--and a sharply barbed tongue.

As Dedee herself puts it after slamming a chair on top of her recently deceased step-father’s open grave, “If you think I’m just plucky and scrappy, and all I need is love, you’re in over your head. I don’t have a heart of gold and I don’t grow one later. Okay?”

That’s fine, perfectly fine, Ms. Truitt, but by all means, please bring on more of this tantalizing tantrum.

Happily, Dedee does. As the film opens, Dedee, who also narrates, is seen storming out of her mother’s house in a cloud of cigarette smoke that clears to find her in the arms of Randy (William Scott Lee), a Bible-thumping redneck from Louisiana who, unfortunately, was born with only one testicle, but who, miraculously, manages to get Dedee pregnant nonetheless. Such is the power of God.

Escaping Randy, Dedee flees to Indiana, where she goes to her half-brother Bill’s house for help, but ends up seducing Bill’s boyfriend, Matt (Ivan Sergei), instead. Bill (Martin Donovan) is the absolute antithesis of the rampantly homophobic Dedee--he is decent, level-headed, loving, a school teacher who has relationships that are healthy, something Dedee cannot comprehend.

But she can damage them--and does--in a film that amounts to post-modern, comic art. With Lisa Kudrow as Bill’s spinster friend Lucia, Lyle Lovette as Officer Carl Tippett and Johnny Galecki as the meddling Jason, “The Opposite of Sex” surfaces as the most politically incorrect film of the year; still, with all its tongue-in-cheek bitterness, sarcasm and cynicism, it manages to never offend.

Ironically, the reason for this is Dedee herself, who, through her wicked ways, unwittingly helps each character to explore their sexuality--and discover that what they really want is what Dedee herself calls the opposite of sex: lasting, committed and loving relationships.

Now go and have one of your own.

Grade: A-

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