‘I’ve got a lot of problems, but they belong to me…’
I imagine that a film about sexual deviances was pretty ground-breaking in 1989, and this perhaps explains why Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape became such an iconic movie despite being fairly tame by today’s standards. Soderbergh is a curious director who seems stuck in that 7/10 region – consistent but rarely sparkling. His debut feature is another that fits nicely into that mould…
Ann (Andie MacDowell) is bright and breezy but sexually repressed resulting in her slimy husband John (Peter Gallagher) having an affair with Ann’s sultry sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo). This uneasy triumvirate is thrown further into confusion by the arrival of Graham (James Spader) – a young man who likes to made videotapes.
Sex, Lies, and Videotape sees Soderbergh directing from his own sharp script and with a talented cast alongside him. MacDowell is excellent but really the whole cast do a great job in making these characters seemed lived in. John’s betrayal of Ann with Cynthia is heartbreakingly authentic and Spader… Well, he’s just good at playing weird, isn’t he? And Graham is possibly his weirdest role to date. It’s certainly the most interesting character called Graham to exist within popular culture.
While Sex, Lies and Videotape is not a bad movie, it has an interesting premise, is well written, superbly acted and competently directed, I struggled to make any kind of emotional connection to it. Perhaps this is another occasion on which I am the problem.