Review: The Opposite of Sex

"I don't have a heart of gold and I don't grow one," warns Dedee Truitt (Christina Ricci), the antiheroine of Don Roos' scathingly funny directorial debut, The Opposite of Sex.

Dedee is 16, all peroxide and cleavage, and living with her mother in Louisiana. "My mother was the kind of mother who always said she was her daughter's best friend. I thought, 'Great! Not only do I have a shitty mother, my best friend is a loser bitch," Dedee deadpans in her ongoing voiceover as she attends her stepfather's funeral. Clad in a criminally plunging halter top dress and teetering on platforms. Before the scene is over, Dedee will have thrown folding chairs into the coffin and stalked out.

Next stop: Indiana. Dedee looks up her half-brother Bill (Martin Donovan), a homosexual English teacher whose longtime lover has recently died of AIDS. Bill's current lover, Matt (Ivan Sergei), catches Dedee's eye: "He was like a blind person, you know? They can't see but they hear really well. Matt couldn't think at all. But he looked great."

Dedee lands Matt in bed, becomes pregnant and flees the state with Matt. Bill is soon scandalized by Jason (Johnny Galecki), a former student claiming to be Matt's lover, who threatens to bring sexual assault charges against Bill if he doesn't reveal Matt's whereabouts. Bill pursues a lead in Palm Springs, his ex-lover's sister Lucia (Lisa Kudrow) and town officer Carl (Lyle Lovett) in tow. Murder and other miscellaneous mishaps occur.

Roos, who wrote the screenplays for Love Field, Single White Female, Boys on the Side, and Diabolique, is a better writer than director. His dialogue drips with venom and raucous wit: Lucia, disbelieving the paternity of Dedee's baby, surmises the real father is "probably someone with an 8th grade education and a trunk full of Waco pamphlets." Another zinger: "She's probably trying to smoke them," Lucia declares after Dedee steals her dead brother's ashes. Matt and Lucia bond over Dedee's latest doublecross: "I share your feelings," Matt says to Lucia after he has forgiven Dedee. "Prove it," Lucia snarls, "help me kill yourself."

The script's only flaw lies in Dedee's narration. While it does a good job of filling in the gaps, it tells much of the story instead of allowing the story to tell itself. That aside, Roos' script is tight and brisk. His direction, however, is not. His pacing is a bit off at times, especially in the first scenes Lucia and Bill share after Matt and Dedee disappear. A better director would also have more ably balanced the serious and madcap elements of this dark screwball comedy.

Thankfully, Roos has a first-rate cast who deliver on-the-mark performances. Galecki is a hoot, Lovett is appealing and Sergei is a talented piece of eye candy. Donovan, a veteran of Hal Hartley's films (Trust, Simple Men) as well as other arthouse flicks, etches a drolly oblivious portrayal and recalls James Stewart's blithe, everyman daffiness.

Ricci and Kudrow elevate the film. Ricci, with that moon face and those damning eyes, swaggers through the film with acidic aplomb. She is so cannily right for the part that it might as well have been written for her. A note of contention: Ricci still needs to learn how to let the audience connect to her. Not with her, but to her. An actor does not necessarily have to connect to an audience but an audience must always connect to an actor. For example, despite Demi Moore's shortcomings as an actress, the audience connects to her.

Ricci does two things that prevent an audience from connecting to her: she possesses a like me or leave me attitude which, while a refreshing contrast to most sycophantic performers, can wear thin. Secondly, she's still trying to prove herself. This may either be a subconscious act on her part or a deliberate need to eradicate any lingering notions of her as a child actress. The latter is evident in the choices she's making: she plays a drug-addled teen in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a tap dancer kidnapped by Vincent Gallo in Gallo's Buffalo 66, and a role she describes as a "laundromat nazi" in John Waters' Pecker. However, she's more admirable for her daring than her abilities. Don't get me wrong: she's a genuine talent with a talent that's hard to judge. Only when the novelty of her newly established onscreen adulthood has passed can her performances be purely judged.

Kudrow, on the other hand, need prove herself no more. Her turn as the embittered spinster with an unrequited crush for Bill is revelatory. Her eyes deadened, her mouth curled into a sneer, Lucia's bitterness is pure reflex. All she can do is spit venom at the people who try to get close to her. Hurt them before they hurt her. Kudrow plunges fearlessly and adrenalizes the film with her giddy ferocity.

The Opposite of Sex

Directed by: Don Roos

Written by: Don Roos

Starring: Christina Ricci, Martin Donovan, Lisa Kudrow, Lyle Lovett, Johnny Galecki, William Lee Scott, Ivan Sergei, Colin Ferguson