Sex, Lies, and Videotape

http://www.jjmurphyfilm.com

I was interested in the director, Stephen Soderberg, because of Traffic, and the idea that the same director would make both conventional movies, like Erin Brockovich and Ocean’s Eleven, and less conventional ones, like Traffic and this one.

The Graham character (the troubled, lonely videotaper) and the Ann character (the neglected wife) both seemed to me brave conceptions, very-real-seeming, and unusually vulnerable. Ann’s adulterous sister and husband seemed less so but they had a lot of intensity. The intensity level is high from beginning to end. While some might say that the movie celebrates perversity, the humane-ness of the most nominally perverted character and of the director-writer’s visionmakes this accusation untrue. The adulterous husband seems vastly more evil than the videographer. If there’s a flaw it might be a lurking sentimentality, but the emotional intensity and the tautness of the narrative keep the sentimentality under control.