I don't understand this movie? Is it trying to be sexy? Or is it actually trying to be entirely unsexy, thus making the point of the movie something along the lines of "sex is good when it doesn't end in murder"? Is the movie trying is be bad. As if the makers thought there was no way it could be good so they would attempt some warped Showgirls circa 2006. And if they were trying that, why didn't it come through? Nothing about this movie seems to entirely make sense. Not in this world, and not in the mysterious twilight zone London world that the movie is set in. Why is it only the weird phallic-esque building that gets any preference. Surely there's more to London than buildings shaped like male genitals.
The setting was ripe for so-bad-it's-good status, but after about the first 20 minutes you actually realise that this movie is for real, which dampens the proceedings mucho. There were some wonderfully hilarious moments towards the start, mostly all involved Sharon Stone and that "are they for real?" dialogue ("you were having sex at 100 miles per hour?" "110!!" and probably this movie's answer to Showgirls' "I eat doggy chow too!" - Sharon Stone's hilarious reading of "I may never come again!" when told she doesn't seem upset over killing somebody while they were giving her an orgasm. LOL), but eventually it becomes grotesque and silly. There's only so many times the characters of a movie can say "come", "pussy", "cunt" and "risk addiction" before you wish they'd talk like real people for a change (I'd never heard of this ridiculous "risk addiction" before and I doubt I ever will again. Is it even a real thing?)
But everything just goes haywire. From secondary characters who seem to be on drugs to Sharon's scary angular hairstyle and way-too-botoxed face and fake tits. Speaking of secondary characters... WTF? The lead male... er, something Morrissey. I'm no big Michael Douglas fan, but geez this is a step down. And to think, Sharon vetoed Benjamin Bratt because he wasn't a good enough actor! Then there is David Thewlis mumbling through his ridiculous character. There's Charlotte Rampling (CHARLOTTE RAMPLING, PEOPLE!!!!) who... well, I don't exactly know what her point was. Heathcote Williams is a weird foreign professor or something who looks strangly like Pedro Almodovar. Everybody is just so awful. And not in the fascinating way. These people just don't care. At least in Showgirls the cast thought they were making Shakespeare and gave it their all, albiet with hilarious consequences. Here, it's as if they all think they're making Shakespeare yet they don't seem to a give a fuck. Nobody has any glee in their performances. They all just kind of stand around (there are so many shots of characters just staring out windows, or staring across rooms, or staring at nothing in particular.)
The tone is all so deadly dull. Even when it comes to sex scenes they aren't done as hilarious over-the-top as Showgirls (or, hell, even the original Basic Instinct - a movie I am fairly blase about). They're ugly and weird. But that fits into the movie's weird parallel twilight universe that this movie is set in. Only in a movie such as this could a character actually say, after driving off the road and killing a man as he was bringing her to orgasm, "What you said about me being... addicted to risk, about having to do more and more dangerous things. Well, after you said it I realised I was... scared. For weeks before the accident, I was having the same fantasy over and over again. I even wrote about it. The woman's driving, the man's making her come, she drives off the road. The man is killed. I feel like maybe I made it all happen" to which the doctor replies "Are you wanting treatment?"
But the failure of the film to not only be entertaining and silly, but also to not revel in it's own stupidity, can be seen most glaringly during a scene towards the end as Sharon's Catherine Tramelle sits at a computer writing her latest story. The voice over by Sharon anotates for us:
"Before the buzzer even sounded, Kelly knew it would be the Doctor. He had come to accuse her of more crimes. They'd fight about that and then have sex and everything would be all right again, except it wouldn't be if he didn't trust her."
Firstly, what does that even mean? And secondly, that's what the whole movie is. Characters accuse characters of stuff (everyone things everyone else has done something evil) and then they throw in a sex scene and then it all starts again. Where's the fun? Where's the frivolity? They just shrug it all off as if it happens all the time. You're dealing with a bisexual serial killer who has a risk addiction and a psychiatrist who works in a penis-shaped building. So is everybody so freakin' depressed? D
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