Sex, Lies, and Videotape

Sex, Lies, And Videotape. 

Director: Steven Soderbergh.
Written by: Steven Soderbergh.
Photography: Walt Lloyd
Starring: James Spader, Andie McDowell, Peter Gallagher and Laura San Giacomo. 
Year: 1989.
Country: USA.



Sex, Lies, and Videotape is the feature début from writer/director/cinematographer Steven Soderbergh. It's also one of the films that kick-started the boom in production of /interest in American Independent Cinema in the '90s.


 It won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1989, even beating Cinema Paradiso, as well it picked up a Best Actor award for James Spader. It didn't have the same success at the Oscars, it was nominated for best original screenplay, but lost to Dead Poets Society. 
  
 The story of SLAV (as I'll call it from now on) is the following: Anne, played by Andie McDowell is a prude Christian housewife. She's extremely self-conscious and paranoid. Her husband, who's played by Peter Gallagher and very similar to his character in American Beauty , is a lawyer and real piece of shit and is having an affair with with Anne's sister, Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo). He invites an old college friend, Graham (James Spader), to stay at his house while he looks for an apartment. 


 Graham instantly sparks a friendship with Anne, before long he tells her his secret, that he's effectively impotent and he can't have sex. What he doesn't tell her is that he has his own method of 'getting off'. He uses his videocamera to interview women about their sex lives, and then watch them back to himself. 


 You could be put off by something on this nature, assuming something verging on pornography, but you mustn't. There's actually no sex or nudity in it at all, lots of sex is implied and sex is talked about explicitly through-out, but it never feels vulgar. However this is a film ONLY for adults and older teens.

 Stephen Soderbergh's direction is phenomenal, I would say that he's one of the best actor's directors working today. It's a great film aesthetically, too. When Graham watches his tapes back we don't seem that footage edited in the film, Soderbergh instead films the TV screen and due to the shutter speed of the camera and low quality of '89's TVs it produces a flickering effect that's truly hypnotic. 


 The performances in SLAV are great, too. James Spader does the quiet diffident type that he does really well and plays a lot. We also get the best performance of Andie McDowell's career. She's fabulous in this, which is surprising, as she's terrible in everything else. And as an added treat, she uses her beautiful natural Southern accent that's always been her saving grace. 


 SLAV's atmospheric soundtrack fits perfectly. It was produced by Cliff Martinez who works frequently with Soderbergh and also did the original score for Drive.  


My one grievance is that it feels too quick to end. It's going at a nice steady pace in the first two acts and then suddenly takes a nose dive into an ending. 


SLAV is an excellent character piece and a staple in American and Independent cinema history.



Score: 4.5/5