The Opposite of Sex (1998)

sábado, 1 de novembro de 2008

The Opposite of Sex (1998)

O Oposto do Sexo e uma história de fuga e sedução envolvendo Christina Ricci, seu irmão e o namorado homossexual dele. Deedee (Christina Ricci) é uma adolescente precoce que foge de casa, durante o verão, e se instala na casa de Bill (Martin Donovan), seu meio-irmão, um professor de inglês homossexual. A confusão tem início quando Deedee seduz o namorado de Bill e foge com o dinheiro dele, sendo perseguida através dos EUA. Com Lisa Kudrow.

This hilarious homo comedy from writer/director Don Roos shows off Christina Ricci in fine form as a wise-cracking, white-trash nymph from the wrong side of the tracks. Escaping Louisiana and her mother, Dedee Truitt (Ricci) comes to visit her rich gay brother Bill (Martin Donovan) in South Bend, Indiana and proves to be an irredeemable hellion. As Dedee explains to the audience in the film's running self-referential voiceover, "If you think there's a heart of gold transformation coming here, you're wrong."

Brother Bill is a bland High School English teacher still in mourning over his lover Tom who died of AIDS (whom Dedee constantly refers to as "Tom, the dead guy").
Ten minutes into the picture Dedee has seduced Tom's new, sexy-but-dim, live-in boyfriend Matt (Ivan Sergei) by convincing him that he can't be gay if he's never tried having sex with a woman. After a few weeks of afternoon bonking Dedee tells Matt that she's pregnant and the two of them announce their wedding plans to Bill and to Tom the dead guy's spinster sister, Lucia (Lisa Kudrow).

The plot thickens, and thickens, evolving into a cross-country chase when Matt and Dedee run off to L.A. taking Tom the dead guy's ashes hostage in a barely plausible plot twist. Meanwhile -- in another wacky and implausible moment -- one of Bill's former high school students (Johnny Galecki) files fake molestation charges against Bill, bringing on a barrage of TV crews (and creating a nice script opportunity to show off the idiocy of anti-gay rhetoric). Additional zany developments follow, and everyone ends up in Canada!? Plus, the sexually-repressed Lucia falls in love with the town sherrif (Lyle Lovett).

Ultimately the film's comic brilliance is overwhelmed by the weight of its mega-screwball plot developments, but Ricci gives a stellar performance and writer/director Don Roos gives us a very enjoyable, and very gay, roller coaster-ride of a movie that should be equally appealing to straight and gay audiences in its clever philosophizing about sex and relationships.