I read the script to sex, lies and videotape before I actually saw the movie - and I can honestly say, the script was better. Screenwriting self-helper, Alex Epstein, speaks of "transparency," the quality of a script that causes you to forget you're reading a script and make you believe you're "watching" a movie. Soderbergh shows us how it's done.

I directed this film in my head the first time I read the script - and what I directed wasn't half-bad. SLV is the story of four people, all of them ready to pop from sheer sexual energy, but seeing the world through different eyes.

Ann and John (Andie McDowell and Peter Gallagher) are eighties yuppies, living the good life. John is an up-and-coming lawyer in a well-to-do firm. Ann is a "stay-at-home" whose sense of style and perfection keeps everything in its place. They're not rich, but they're stylish. Five minutes into this film, I knew I was NOT keeping up with the Joneses, nor was I likely to ever catch up.

As in the recent Closer, there's more at work than meets the eye. Beneath the surface of its Ozzy and Harriet charm, their marriage hides a dirty little secret: John is having wild, raunchy sex on the side - and not just with anyone. He's having it with Ann's sister, Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo).

Maybe that's why the relationship between these three is so filled with unspoken tension. Ann and Cynthia are world's apart (Ann is the "good girl"; Cynthia is the wildchild.) Even if Ann doesn't connect the dots, Cynthia knows she's playing with fire. Perhaps it's her way of dealing with Ann's paternalistic, older-sister crap - giving Cynthia the needle in that "I've made it, you should too" sort of way. Even so, Ann seems only inches away from the dirt swept under the bedroom carpet, which is why she's such an obsessive-compulsive with a vacuum cleaner.

John has no complaints, except that Ann doesn't really put out, which is possibly why Cynthia is pinch-hitting for the season.

Into this nest comes Graham (James Spader), a burn-out who lives his life by the mantra: the fewer the keys, the better. Graham is a volcano of sexual energy, frustrated by the cruel ironies of fate and capped by the need to put a lid on all that poison. He isn't the phallic success story of Peter. If anything, he's everything Peter isn't - sensitive, shy, and so detached Peter sees him as a pathetic loser. When Graham comes to town to settle down, he spends a night on John's couch, long enough to meet Ann, and just long enough to send everything twisting in a new direction.

I'm going to stop talking plot. Otherwise, I'll end up spoiling the fun.

Soderbergh is an enigma, himself, more Graham than John. The script showcased his enormous talent, but also foreshadowed the wobbling struggle that goes on between his art and commerce. Released in 1989, SLV was among the first of a wave of films that set a new tone for the 90s, one that questioned the values and the reality of 80s suburbia and its image of material success and moral stability. Think of it as American Beauty for twenty-somethings. But it's also a strip club run by a boy scout. Despite its lurid title, this is one film whose pulpiness is mostly a mental card trick.

I say "mostly" because there's one scene involving Cynthia that is clearly not mental - and boy scouts are not invited. Were the whole film like this, we'd be wandering through B-movie, late-night cable fluff. Instead, Soderbergh is interested in relationships. He uses sensuality to get your attention. Once there, he's selling calculus, not centerfolds.

The performances are clearly awesome. Peter Gallagher never made a better heel. Andy McDowell is perfect as the good girl whose obsessiveness is compensation in slow motion. Few actresses could do what Laura San Giacomo does - with her clothes on. She is a grossly under-rated performer, adding sizzle to every line of dialogue, without overdoing it. I've met a few Cynthia's in my life, and San Giacomo does them justice.

Head and shoulders above them all is James Spader, who successfully sheds his own image in a series of eighties flicks calling for Johns like Peter. Gone is the cocky, arrogant cardboard cutout from all those John Hughes films. Enter Graham, a guy you can't help but pity, a guy whose eyes alone tell the story of being blown away by life. If Spader makes any mistake in this role, it's in being too good at it. This one film sets a new standard for him that will haunt him for the next decade, instantly typecasting him as the opposite of his eighties persona.

As a writer, Soderbergh is highly imaginative. As a director, he's no slouch, but he's also a guy perhaps too smart for his own good. Like someone I've seen in a mirror or two, this guy bores easily. For every Ocean's Eleven that rewards him for playing a John, Soderbergh can't help but go back to Graham - out of sheer boredom. Soderbergh is a restless soul, alternating between the two, never able to find a "happy medium" between them.

When the magic works, his career looks like this: Art film, hit, art film, hit, art film hit, etc. When it doesn't, this is what we get: Loud extravaganza, art-house flop, loud extravaganza, art-house flop.

I think Soderbergh is so talented, I sat through the talky Solaris, indifferent to its butt-numbing lack of action. I let myself get caught up in its cathartic love story - and on that level, I was able to enjoy it for what it was. The public, I suspect, is not so forgiving. Then again, it's not the public he plays too these days. Soderbergh, like the Coen Brothers, is a studio lovetoy, his reputation so choc full of prestige no studio would dump him over something so trivial as losses his off-films take when he dumps them on an indifferent public. Like P.T. Anderson - whose films regularly post a loss - he's just too good to retire, even if the public doesn't entirely "get it."

Ocean's Twelve is just what he needs - an extension on his career. Now watch him do another Full Frontal, and get away with it. This guy could film cement drying and keep his job - just as long as there's an Ocean's Thirteen waiting in the wings.

Be that as it may, this is the film that launched a career. Its pretended luridness may seem a little tame by nineties standards (though a little off-color for today's uber-timidity). It's a wonderfully tight, taut exploration into the lives of four lovers quietly defying the "good manners" of the day. Unlike Closer, it has more on its mind than exposing "those fine young cannibals." It likes its characters, even the despiccable John, enough to evoke a sense of sympathy and understanding you're not likely to get in the next Vin Diesel film.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age