Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)

A classic case of where the mechanics of marriage become the insidious culprit to sexual indiscretion...John Millaney is the overly mortgaged white collar malcontent who is callous with his regard toward marital fidelity...He has an affair with his wife's sister, Cynthia Bishop, she is a morally bankrupt loner who resents her sister's relatively structured existence...Gram Dalton is the voyeuristic creep who preys on the dissatisfaction of married women with the seven year itch syndrome, and other disgruntled and socially misplaced women as well!! He perceives vulnerability in women to be sexually stimulating!! His ultimate undoing is his creative resolution to boredom, and this basically backfires in an absolutely horrendous way!!! Ann Millaney (John's wife) is torn between a perfect marriage and an emotional millennium.. She is convinced that not only does doing things her way work, IT MUST!!. It is not necessary to have all the missing pieces to the puzzle in her marriage because she realizes the ramifications of such a heinous plight!! What presses everyone's buttons? Is it kink, is it bi, or bi for the night, is it emotional nurturing?...James Spader's character (Gram Dalton) has a life that is based on comparative stability, everybody (mostly women) can expose their lewd nuances while he keeps his a secret, once someone has tampered with his quirkiness which is close to the vest, he has no ability to cope, thus, he exaggerates his mistakes!!!All of the characters in this film are hit with the grim reality that not accepting responsibility accomplishes nothing....They all engage in a form of permanent self destruction!! Being flippant about immorality has a definite rude awakening!! What seems complicated is really very simple, and the depraved intrigue of perversion merely brings out all of their most dreaded skeletons in the closet!!!! Seldom in a film is there such a precise poignancy about things that bother people that really should not bother them at all...This is what gets them into so much trouble!! Steven Soderbergh's production efforts in this film were merely a harbinger of things to come, as he has gone on to produce and direct fabulous movies ("Good Night and Good Luck", "Syrianna", and "Traffic", to name but a few!!) This film effectuates a noteworthy devotion to an unintentional and sordid sexual authenticity!! Sundance is a network for the non-conventional.."Sex Lies and Videotape" is testament to the fact that what appears gray flannel is not always the panacea people would like to believe it to be!! Marital upheaval is all about emotional affliction in this movie. Latent reactions are a manifestation of psychological insecurity. You are never going to get what you want out of a relationship because you don't know what that is!! This was the summon substance of what the film "Sex Lies and Videotape" was all about!! This film had a personal dedication to it as well!!

A very well made film, I give it 5 stars!!!

Fmovies: Steven Soderbergh's now legendary debut was the first his film I saw. It was in 1989, during the Moscow International Film Festival. Only later I found out that Sodebergh was 29 when he wrote the screenplay in eight days during a trip to Los Angeles and made the film for $1.8 million. His independent movie was a real hit that was selected for Cannes Film Festival and won the Palme d'Or and the best actor prize for James Spader.

The film concerns four attractive and intelligent young people. Ann (Andy MacDowell in the best role I've ever seen her) is married to John (Gallagher) but their sexual life is practically non-existent since Ann finds sex over-rated, and to simply put it, she does not enjoy or even need it. John is having an affair with Ann's sexy younger sister, Cynthia (San Giacomo) who seems to resent Ann. Enters Graham (Spader), John's college friend with the unusual hobby of videotaping women while they describe their sexual fantasies and very important skill - he knows how to listen.

I had seen many movies before "sex, lies and videotape" and I've seen plenty since but it has a special place in my memory. It was the first film I had seen that dealt with and talked about very intimate topics of sexuality, satisfaction, jealousy, sisters' relationship, marital problems and loyalty, the secret longings in all of us, and the ever mysterious nature of erotic desire with such level of honesty, openness, and intelligence. The writing, the dialogs, and the acting are superb with James Spader and Laura San Giacomo simply outstanding and Andie McDowell very convincing.

Once in a great while a motion picture comes along that surprises me. sex, lies, and videotape is one of them. 10-years had passed between the release of this picture and the time I saw it. Then another 2-years before I decided to write about just how wonderful it is. My only regret is that I didn't get to view it on the big screen. My commentary on this film will be terse and the reason for this is I admired the film so much that I could go on-and-on about how really good it is.

The first thing I noticed about the characters of Graham and Ann is that they are drawn to each other without realizing it. During their first scene together, I could tell there was some attraction between them. Ann is a sweet, innocent, very intelligent woman who is unfulfilled, yet doesn't realize her dilemma and is, therefore, in therapy. At first I thought my instinct was wrong in this incidence, but came to realize how right I had been when Ann arose to go upstairs just to look at Graham sleeping. Neither of them have a clue as to what is transpiring between them, but their future together seems set and often that can be the best kind.

Andie MacDowell is absolutely wonderful as Ann. She owned that role.

Graham is the character in search of closure to his past, which he regrets, probably due to his new-found moral code. His attraction to Ann isn't evident to him because most men seeking a higher moral plane don't think of other men's wives in that regard. Yet he openly discusses his impotence with her in a diner while the two of them are apartment-hunting for him. It's true that they are sharing secrets, but why something so personal a nature? Ann tells Graham that she thinks sex is overrated and gives him her reasons why. So, we have two comparative strangers, who had only met the day before, discussing things about their lives that they normally would keep to themselves and it is because they are comfortable with one-another and are still unaware of the deep-rooted attraction they share.

James Spader is one of my favorite actors and turns in his usual outstanding performance.

The character of Cynthia (Ann's sister) is the opposite of Ann. She knows what she wants and isn't afraid to go after it, even though it's her sister's husband. She doesn't want him on a permanent basis -- just when she needs him. Sort of like a light switch that you can flip on and off.

Good performance by Laura San Giacomo.

The toughest character to write about is John. Here is a guy on his way up the ladder of success who lets his hormones affect his job performance. He isn't entirely to blame, because he is in a loveless marriage and he doesn't realize the fact that he doesn't hold the key to Ann's heart.

Good performance by Peter Gallagher.

Mr. Soderbergh did an outstanding job of directing the four main characters to achieve the proper mix. Without his superb direction this would have been just another film, but it is so much more than that. I look forward to more of his writer-director creations, but sex, lies, and videotape will remain one of my all-time favorite films.

Sex, Lies, and Videotape fmovies. Throughout, I felt like a fly on the wall at a psychiatrist's private session with a client. One character asks another an intimate question; the second character responds. Then someone asks another question, to which a low-key response is given, and on and on. I don't recall a movie wherein characters ask each other so many nosy, intimate questions. With its voyeuristic theme, this film gets just a tad too personal for my taste.

Four attractive, thirty-something yuppies, two males and two females, with nothing on their minds but sex, ask, probe, inquire, explore, and poke around each others' psyche, spurred on by one of the male characters (James Spader) who likes to videotape sex interviews with women. Fortunately, Spader gives a convincing performance, one that renders the story credible, if the viewer is interested in this sort of thing.

It's a modern story, similar in some ways to "Carnal Knowledge" (1971), but more up-to-date with the video technology. Scenes are filmed mostly in interiors, which gives the story a claustrophobic feel and a sense of intimacy. We get to know the four characters, maybe a little more than I would have liked. All of them are flawed and therefore very human. The Peter Gallagher character is a scoundrel and easy to dislike. The two women are sisters and very unlike, one an uptight introvert, the other a rather salacious extrovert.

The plot is slow, with long camera "takes". The script is talky. Dialogue trends too on-the-nose at times. The camera is rather static and unobtrusive. I didn't like the grainy visuals of the taped interviews.

Low-budget and very low-key, "Sex, Lies, And Videotape" will appeal to viewers who like films wherein characters talk a lot about sex. There's not much "action". But all that erotic talk substitutes for action. Which is really the whole point of the film.

I heard a great deal about this movie from some of my friends and having seen some of Soderbergh's more recent works, I must say I was kind of let down. The story in itself is kind of interesting but the characters (and the actors) aren't. Most of the characters felt superficial to me ie. the successful lawyer having an affair, cheating sister, repressed wife etc. I just think Soderbergh should have built the characters a little more. Other than that it is quite a decent film. Especially the different perspectives this film gives you on infidelity and dishonesty (and fetishes I guess). Not a movie I would watch again though... I'll just stick to Soderbergh more recent work (Traffic was brilliant).

Yes, "Sex, Lies and Videotape" is about sex, lies and videotape. And, while the sex is mostly served in dialogue-form and not a single shot of nudity is present, there is some graphic lying and some explicit videotape. Kinky, right?

Well, not really. "Sex, Lies and Videotape" is Steven Sodenbergh's first film and it's not a bad one. It's just not entirely worthy of the praise it received, at Cannes for example. The situations in the film do create a fair amount of tension that moves the story along. But then, it'd be hard not to have some tension in a film about a woman whose husband is cheating on her with her sister, while she starts interacting with a stranger who is the husband's old college roommate and has a strange videotape fetish and may or may not be a pathological liar. (How do you believe someone who just confessed to having been a pathological liar to not being one anymore? The film doesn't really riddle that one for us.)

Clearly, these characters clash together. But it's not as heated or interesting as it was in later Sodenbergh's films like the spectacular "Traffic." The dialogues in "Sex, Lies and Videotape" range from good to incredibly awkward. But the real strength of the film is the actors. While James Spader clearly stands out - I have never seen him deliver such a subtle performance where every scene simply works for him - Andie McDowell is phenomenal, Peter Gallagher playing the scummy, treacherous husband yuppie lawyer type is great and Laura San Giacomo as the vulgar sister / lover is fabulous. Their performances make the script work, which, under normal circumstances with inferior actors would have seemed rather silly.