Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

johner23 The mother was a lonely wife, the husband always far away and son was problematic and inexperienced with girls.Both alone in the house and get enough voltage situations arise for both and they feel attraction for each other. She was a beautiful/well charmed 50's years old lady and he was a young man.The incest itself was an "excuse", because there were problems between the characters in other parts of their lifes. I mean: mother and son already have emotional, sexual and social problems.When they got alone, experiencing all kind of tension between them, specially concerning about "sensual" ones, their needs speaks louder and they commit incest for their reliefs.The director knew well explore these topics: eroticism and family problems. Very nice movie.

Neil Doyle An independent film that bravely confronts the subject of consensual incest is presented as a dark comedy in which ALBERTA WATSON and JEREMY DAVIES, as mother and son, have the key roles. It's their mother/son relationship at the heart of the story that is compelling and sometimes erotic--especially the scene where Davies has to massage his mother's legs and toes while they discuss why her road travelling husband isn't there to do it for her.When the story strays to others outside this relationship, it fails to make the same connection. The father is strictly a man so obsessed with his own career that he ignores his wife. She, in turn, is a manipulative shrew who virtually seduces her son because she's a needy woman. The son's friends are depicted as total drug-happy boors and boozers whose minds are completely idle.At times the story becomes dark and brooding--even intense--and yet there's a surface tension broken by laughter at some of the shenanigans going on in this dysfunctional, to say the least, family.Outstanding work by JEREMY DAVIES and ALBERTA WATSON. He's highly sympathetic in his predicament all the way through and she's totally despicable in the manner by which she exerts control over him. Both show complete understanding of their difficult roles.Summing up: Interesting tale, character-driven and flawed, but worth watching.

jzappa The only truly notable thing to say about Spanking the Monkey is that it is one of two films that I think I've ever seen that have actually turned me on. This is kudos to not only the actress involved in the particular scene but also the director, David O. Russell, who happens to have directed both films. In what I think is his best film, I Heart Huckabees, there is a scene where Isabelle Huppert massages Jason Schwartzman's crotch with her foot. This aroused me. In Spanking the Monkey, reluctant Jeremy Davies rubs lotion on bed-ridden Alberta Watson's upper thighs. In order to give her a full once-over, he has to reach his fingertips just beyond the limits of her very short summer shorts. Good job, Mr. Russell. And thank you, Ms. Watson. I am hardly ever aroused in any way by any sexual situation of any kind in movies or TV, even some of the hottest, steamiest, most well-crafted scenes ever filmed, but David O. Russell seems to share my taste.The context of this scene is not what turns me on. The context of this scene is Oedipal, as is the film's entire premise. The premise is quite funny in a way that taps into our frustration, self-centeredness, and animal hormone roller coasters, though it's sometimes too subtle for its own good, and its serious points come without the grace they need, often taking us by surprise. The acting is surprisingly good for a low-budget independent film. I was surprised that Jeremy Davies could actually move me at all with a performance, because he normally lies flat on the screen, with the presence of one of the props. In Spanking the Monkey, ironically early in his career, he is very good.Overall, Spanking the Monkey is funny, interesting, and kind of hot, even if it's almost shameful by the standards of the writer/director's later work. It's not a particularly memorable film, but it has its highlights.

parkerr86302 Considering the plethora of reviews here, both good and bad, there isn't much I can say that hasn't already been said. I will add that the first half works "reasonably" well, allowing viewers to understand perhaps how such a thing as an incestuous encounter could possibly happen. But then the film derails, and derails big time. The boy blames his mother completely for what they did, and the film seems to side with him despite the fact that it had previously shown us that he was just as guilty as she in the liaison. The film gets unspeakably ugly from there. The subject of consensual incest has been addressed by film only a few times over the years, always with unsatisfactory results---perhaps this is reflective of society's uneasiness with the subject. Consensual incest is about the only "sexual more" that is never discussed (even by psychologists), even though it likely occurs in real life with more frequency than we would like to believe.