Themes: Suburban Dysfunction, Runaways, Unrequited Love
Main Cast: Christina Ricci, Martin Donovan, Lisa Kudrow, Lyle Lovett, Johnny Galecki, William Lee Scott, Ivan Sergei
Release Year: 1998
Country: US
Run Time: 120 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Screenwriter Don Roos made his directorial debut with this oddball sex comedy. The tale is narrated by 16-year-old Louisiana tramp Dedee Truitt (Christina Ricci), who buries her stepfather and then heads for Indiana to visit her homosexual half-brother Bill (Martin Donovan). Recovering from the AIDS death of longtime companion Tom, schoolteacher Bill has linked up with a new partner, handsome Matt (Ivan Sergei). After Dedee seduces Matt and claims she's pregnant by him, the couple steals $10,000 from Bill's safety deposit box and heads for L.A. Alarmed by Matt's seeming disappearance and hoping to blackmail Bill into disclosing Matt's whereabouts, Bill's former student (also Matt's former beau) Jason (Johnny Galecki) accuses Bill of molestation four years previous, a charge that jeopardizes Bill's job as a schoolteacher. To clear his name, Bill, and Tom's sister Lucia (Lisa Kudrow), leave for L.A. to locate Matt and Dedee. Lucia is a repressed old maid who flinches from even the thought of sex, but even so, weird Sheriff Tippett (Lyle Lovett) takes a fancy to her. Meanwhile, questions are raised about the true father of Dedee's baby, and the film comes to a climax with a shooting, a cross-county chase, and the inevitable showdown between the quirky characters. Shown at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
Review
From first-time director Don Roos comes this witty dramedy about family, sex, and surviving both of them. Emerging as a viable leading lady, Christina Ricci stars as the white trash heroine, Dedee Truitt, who appears at the doorstep of her gay stepbrother (Martin Donovan) and goes about turning his life upside down by stealing his sweet boyfriend (Ivan Sergei) and enraging the embittered woman who's in love with him (Lisa Kudrow). Equipped with a razor-sharp screenplay, The Opposite of Sex smartly handles the touchy subject of homophobia with winning humor and originality. In addition to Ricci's nuanced turn, Kudrow also shines as the lonely Lucia, making audiences take notice of the fact that her range might extend beyond the dippy presence she provides as Phoebe on NBC's long-running Friends. ~ Rachel Deahl, All Movie Guide
Rodney Eastman - Ty; Harrison Young - Medical Examiner
Credit
Peter Mitchell - Costume Designer, Steve Danton - First Assistant Director, Don Roos - Director, David Codron - Editor, Steve Danton - Executive Producer, Jim Lofti - Executive Producer, Mason K. Daring - Composer (Music Score), Michael Clausen - Production Designer, Hubert Taczanowski - Cinematographer, David Kirkpatrick - Producer, Michael Besman - Producer, Kristin V. Peterson - Set Designer, Jon Ailetcher - Sound/Sound Designer, Don Roos - Screenwriter
The Opposite of Sex is a 1998film written and directed by Don Roos. It stars Christina Ricci, Martin Donovan and Lisa Kudrow. The film marked departures for both Ricci and Kudrow, cast against type for the roles they were known for at the time (Ricci for adolescents in The Addams Family and Casper, Kudrow for being the resident airhead on Friends). Ricci went on to star in such films as Sleepy Hollow,Monster,Black Snake Moan, and Speed Racer.[1]
The film is a black comedy, narrated by and centered around self-absorbed, manipulative, cynical teenager Dede Truitt (Ricci), who runs away from home after her stepfather's funeral and moves in with her gay half-brother Bill, a teacher living in a conservative, suburban community in Indiana. Dede seduces Bill's young lover, Matt, then tricks him into believing she has gotten pregnant by him (in fact, the father of her child is her ex-boyfriend Randy Cates). She and Matt elope, leaving Bill and the uptight Lucia (Lisa Kudrow), the sister of Bill's (deceased) previous lover (Tom), to try and track them down and sort out the mess. In the meantime, Matt's "bit on the side," Jason Bock, attempts to blackmail Bill, claiming Bill sexually assaulted him while he was a student. Bill and Lucia track down Deedee and Matt, only to discover Deedee has stolen Tom's ashes and is holding for ransom. Randy also finds Deedee, they inform Matt that they are taking the ashes and moving to have the baby elsewhere. They escape, but soon get into an argument which leads to Deedee accidentally shooting Randy. She and Matt escape to Canada, and Bill eventually finds them.
After the birth of Randy Jr, Deedee gives Tom's ashes to Bill, apologizing for her actions in the past year. After a few months in prison, she moves back in with Bill, while Matt and Jason go travelling together, and Lucia marries her old friend Carl. Eventually, Deedee discovers Randy Jr would be better off alone with Bill(who is now dating Deedee's parol officer) and runs away. Narrating the ending, Deedee sarcastically concludes that sex is precisely the opposite of what people should want, leading as it does to kids, disease, or worst of all, relationships. At the end of the film, the vignettes of the various caring relationships among the characters shows the Opposite of superficial sexual gratification.
For its North American theatrical run, The Opposite of Sex took in film rentals of $5,881,367. The opening weekend saw a per screen average of $20,477 for the 5 theaters showing it.
Janet Maslin in The New York Times called it a "gleefully acerbic comedy." Roger Ebert especially enjoyed the voice-over narration supplied in-character by Ricci, calling it "refreshing" and comparing it to Mystery Science Theater 3000:
When you've seen enough movies, alas, you can sense the gears laboriously turning, and you know with a sinking heart that there will be no surprises. The Deedee character subverts those expectations; she shoots the legs out from under the movie with perfectly timed zingers. I hate people who talk during movies, but if she were sitting behind me in the theater, saying all of this stuff, I'd want her to keep right on talking.
Overall, the film scored an 85% on the Rotten Tomatoes site.
Production
The film began in the aftermath of another film Don Roos had been working on that had shut down when the lead actress left it, putting Roos in house-bound funk.[2] He had a mental image of a woman throwing a chair into an open grave at a funeral and from that one image grew the script of The Opposite of Sex.[2]
Production began on June 8th, 1997 with the filming of a library scene between Kudrow and Donovan that would ultimately be cut from the finished film.[2] The restaurant scene was shot at the closed Chasen's restaurant site[2] (Dan Bucatinsky, Roos' life-partner, makes a cameo during this scene as the waiter).
