Themes: Sibling Relationships, Haunted By the Past
Main Cast: Tilda Swinton, Amy Madigan, Karen Sillas, Laila Robins, Clancy Brown
Release Year: 1996
Country: DE/US
Run Time: 116 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
An outwardly successful woman teeters on the brink of emotional collapse in this psychological drama. Evelyn Stevens (Tilda Swinton) is a skilled and well-regarded attorney who is being considered for a prestigious judicial appointment. However, she's plagued by self-doubt and neurotic obsessions (the "perversions" referenced in the title), including an obsession with expensive clothes and cosmetics, lingering fears about her relationship with her lover John (Clancy Brown), an exaggerated sense of competition with the new lawyer in her office, and an intense sexual curiosity about Renee (Karen Sillas), the psychiatrist who has just moved into her building. Evelyn is forced to put her own problems on hold for the moment when she learns that her sister Madelyn (Amy Madigan), a Ph.D candidate struggling to complete her doctoral thesis, has been arrested again for shoplifting. In time, the two sisters realize that they have to come to terms with the psychic damage inflicted upon them in their childhood. Female Perversions was based on the best-selling novel by Louise J. Kaplan. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Former Hollywood agent Susan Streitfeld's directorial debut is a fiercely intelligent sexual polemic on the insanity of gender roles in the modern world. Tilda Swinton is terrific as the aptly named Eve, a lawyer on her way up the ladder to high-powered success. Eve's life illustrates the film's thesis, that women are forced to play rather twisted roles, and succumb to these "perversions" to fill desperate needs. Eve is being torn apart by the conflicting demands she thinks she has to fulfill -- beauty, intelligence, sexuality, ruthlessness, tenderness...it becomes maddening. Streitfeld crams in a lot of ideas, showing other women who represent different images (marriage, sexploitation, self-loathing), and brings in child abuse, fantasy scenes, and the like. Perhaps it's too busy for only 119 minutes, but it's undeniably powerful, thought-provoking material. It may be too rough for some, but those with a taste for brutal honesty might consider a double feature with In the Company of Men for an evening of equal-opportunity cinematic hell. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
