Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

david-sarkies I saw this movie because a friend of mine said that it was pretty good. I generally listen to suggestions from people, unless of course it is one particular person and I don't really want to see the movie, as this person has an uncanny ability to become incredibly annoying when trying to convince somebody to do something they really do not want to do. But he's a good bloke anyway.This movie is about a woman who runs away from home after her step-dad dies. She goes and stays with her half-brother, seduces his boyfriend and then leaves for Los Angeles. This begins numerous problems as he is blackmailed by a rather suspicious kid who claims to be this guy's boyfriend as well. It might also be noted to state that the half-brother's former boyfriend, Tom, has died of aids and left him with a lot of money. Tom's sister also hangs around him, and is infatuated with him, but the guy never really takes on. He is gay and he doesn't change, no matter how much we want him to.This movie explores sex, what it is, why people do it, and whether it is bad. The end of the movie sums it all up when she says, I don't want sex, it brings to many bad things such as babies, relationships, commitments and lots of other annoying things. Images of relationships then flash before you, both hetro and homo sexual, and one comes to see the beauty in relationships. It is then that she sits down and says, I guess there are some good things about it.That is the conclusion of this movie - sex is about relationships, though relationships are not always about sex. As is pointed out to the homosexual, he doesn't want his boyfriend for some intellectual type relationship, he wants him for sex, pure and simple. This is something that he does not want to admit, he would rather see it is a side thing for something deeper, but he is kidding himself. What we see is that he doesn't want the intellectual type of thing, he wants sex and he wants it with a man.The girl is different though. She wants the sex without all of the problems, but realises that these problems are not everything. It is the relationships that count. She looks at the relationships and realises that it is a beautiful thing that we have, and sex is just an added bonus.The question of procreation is raised in conjunction with relationships in another clever quote. 'It is interesting how whoever created us made sex so good, and as a means of procreation, because we want sex we will procreate. If it was something like talking on the telephone then nobody would want it and we would die out in a few short years.' I guess this really attacks the heart of humanity - we want sex but we don't want the burdens that come with it: burdens such as babies, relationships, commitments, and even reputation. Just as the gay guy argued that he wanted the intellectual side of the relationship to protect his reputation, it was only a dream. It was only when the woman confronted him with it that he came to accept that it was the sex he was after.I feel that this is a very intelligent film with deep character development and a running commentary on what is going on. My only criticism is when the two guys kiss and the narrator says, now girls, if your boyfriend groaned at what just happened then he is definitely a closet. She then proceeded to run off a number of redneck attributes, indicating that if you are anti-homosexual the you must be gay. This is only supported by the fact that some of the most powerful men in America were very anti-homosexual and also closet homosexuals. Just because you don't agree with it does not mean you are a closet homosexual.

James Hitchcock Dedee Truitt, a wild, rebellious Louisiana teenager, runs away from home after her stepfather's funeral and moves in with her half-brother Bill. Bill, who is much older than his sister, is a gay teacher living in an affluent suburban community in Indiana with his young lover, Matt. Dedee takes a fancy to the good-looking Matt who, unknown to Bill, is actually bisexual, and seduces him, then elopes with him, after tricking him into believing that he has got her pregnant. (She is pregnant, but by another man). To make matters worse for Bill, he is falsely accused of sexually assaulting Jason, one of his former students.The plot gets a lot more complicated than that, but I won't set out all its twists and turns. Three other characters who play an important part are Randy, Dedee's ex-boyfriend and the real father of her child, Lucia, the sister of Bill's deceased partner Tom, and Carl, a policeman who is romantically interested in Lucia. (Lucia is always apologising for the fact that her name is not pronounced in the Italian way, which she seems to think was an error on the part of her parents, but in fact the pronunciation she uses, "Loosha", was the traditional English form of the name, and is still preserved in the name of the Caribbean island of St Lucia). The film was both written and directed by Don Roos. It was the first film to be directed by him, although he had previously written a few scripts. These included "Diabolique", that dreadful remake of Clouzot's "Les Diaboliques", and "Single White Female", an enjoyable if not particularly original thriller, but "The Opposite of Sex" is far more imaginative than either of those.(It perhaps has some similarities with Roos's quirky script for "Love Field"). The film has been described as "politically incorrect" for its view of gay life, and was even marketed under the slogan "You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be offended". I did not, however, find anything about the film particularly offensive. Certainly, Jason is a fairly unpleasant character, and Matt a bit of an airhead, but the idea that no gay or bisexual character can ever be shown in anything other than a positive light is a patronising one, like the idea that no film can ever have a black villain. In any case, Jason is treated in a much less negative way in this black comedy than a character making false allegations against a teacher would have been treated in a serious drama, and the film has one positive gay character in the shape of the decent, kindly and likable Bill. Bill is also portrayed as quiet, sober and conservative, something unusual in Hollywood which generally prefers gay characters to be camp, witty and flamboyant. There is a quite remarkable performance from the eighteen-year-old Christina Ricci as Dedee. Ricci had already made her name as a child star in films like "The Addams Family" and its sequel and "Casper", and had made the transition to more adult roles in "The Ice Storm" the previous year. Dedee is a wonderful character- rude, cynical and with no respect for anyone, but possessed of a certain intelligence and a ready wit. She says that she will not turn out to have a heart of gold, and means it, but we sense that her crude, rebellious nature is the result of an unhappy childhood, the details of which we never precisely learn. The title of the film derives from one of her sarcastic observations about life, that sex is precisely the opposite of what people should want, as it leads to kids, disease or, "worst of all, relationships". Ricci received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy; watching this film reminded me of how surprised I was to learn that she has never won, or even been nominated for, an Oscar. But then, "The Opposite of Sex" is the sort of clear-eyed, unsentimental film that the Academy has never much cared for. Of the other actors the one who most impressed me was Martin Donovan as Bill. Johnny Galecki as Jason was a bit annoying and Lisa Kudrow as Lucia occasionally reminded me too much of her Phoebe from "Friends", even though the characters are supposed to be quite different. The American cinema- and this was as true in the nineties as it is today- is often criticised for its conservatism- not in the political sense but in the sense that it can become excessively reliant on the familiar and the tried and tested. Occasionally, however, Hollywood can come up with something brilliantly new, and there were a number of such films in the late nineties, Peter Weir's "The Truman Show" and Sam Mendes's "American Beauty" being two particularly outstanding examples. "The Opposite of Sex" is perhaps not in the same class as those masterpieces, but it is nevertheless a refreshingly cynical black comedy with an original take on human relationships. 8/10

Tweekums This is a great comedy which at first seems very non-PC with Ricci's character making various comments about gay people, or 'mos as she calls them, but in reality it is the opposite; the most decent and sensible character is her gay half-brother played by Martin Donovan. All the acting was of a high standard, Lisa Kudrow shows that she is not just a television actress and Christina Ricci is great as Dedee.Dedee Truitt is a sixteen year old who leaves her home in Louisiana and turns up at the door of the Bill, gay half brother in Indiana who she has only met once before many years ago. She hasn't been there long when she seduces his boy friend Matt and claims to be pregnant by him. Soon after the two of them leave taking some of Bill's money with them.The attention of the film now switches to Bill, although Dedee continues to narrate. Bill's problems mount after Matt and Dedee leave when somebody claiming to be Matt's other boyfriend tries to blackmail Bill into saying where he is by telling the police that Bill molested him when he was a student at the school Bill teaches at. When Matt phones trying to get more money Bill and Lucia (Bill's dead former boyfriend's sister, played by Lisa Kudrow) set off to LA to confront Matt and Dedee... things don't get any simpler after they meet up, I would say more but don't want to spoiler the whole film.The relationships between the characters is fairly convoluted but not confusing and most are likable, even Dedee who in real life would probably be be a nightmare to know is shown in a reasonable light. If you want a grown up comedy about sexual relationships that doesn't descend into smuttiness or need to actually show the sex then this is the film for you... well worth watching.

johnnyboyz I suppose if Barbara Stanwyk's character of Phyllis in Double Indemnity had a daughter, they might be either Sharon Stone's Catherine Trammell from Basic Instinct or Linda Fiorentino's Bridget Gregory in The Last Seduction – this begs the question what would Phyllis' granddaughter have looked like or acted like – you could search for another example but Christina Ricci's Dede Truitt isn't too far away. But this is only the beginning since The Opposite of Sex is a muddled and un-entertaining film that combines the genres of noir, comedy, road and romance and hopes that all the usual stereotypes or clichéd images of gay people, stroppy female teens and strong, silent middle aged types who are, of course, well respected teachers will make you feel at home.The Opposite of Sex is also a film that changes its mind a couple of times about what sort of a film it's going to be. For the first third, it's very reminiscent to that of The Last Seduction given the fact a female has run off (with another man in this film, lots of money in The Last Seduction); leaves behind two members of the same sex: Bill and Lucia (Kudrow) (Bill Truitt is gay so he's already embodied traits of the female) and just leaves them with the task of finding them. What follows is a series of events that has Bill and Lucia hopping and skipping all around the place attempting to track down Dede in an attempt to either clear Bill's name (after he was wrongly accused of molesting children) or get back the urn of ashes Dede stole. The problem is, all of the characters get so close to one another that it could've all been solved on numerous occasions. Along the way, Dede is literally on the other side of a motel door, other times they are in a restaurant together, then they're staking out where they live instead of getting amongst the action: asking questions – the final nail in this particular coffin is when Lucia is sneaking up on a log cabin in the Canadian wilderness after following them (what else) and decides to listen in on a monologue that was, I'm sure, supposed to leave me in tears. To be honest, I didn't listen to a word of it as I was so uninterested and couldn't care less about the characters by that point.I felt that this film was supposed to revolve around the character of Dede. The idea is good: A girl who could perhaps embody the femme fatale tag Stanwyk, Stone and Fiorentino did so well at in their respective films manages to seduce a gay or bisexual man out of his money, before going on the run with the hook being that the femme fatale is a 16 year old. I'm no professional screenwriter but events can happen, characters can come and go; some dying with violence and sex providing support where needed. That's what I thought the film would be only I get a load of clap-trap from the rest of the characters, Lucia goes on her own little journey of self discovery in the form on having sex for the first time in ages and the entire sub-plot of Bill's name being cleared for paedophilia was so tiresome and unnecessary that taking a brief nap during any scene involving it wouldn't go unpunished.Dede narrates the film as if Ricci herself is the director; telling us what to like and what not to like, manipulating us with scenes of childbirth to get us to feel sorry for her and having the other characters, who are miles away, get up to whatever they're doing – how is she supposed to know what the hell they're up to? Did Walter tell us what Pyllis was up to when he wasn't with her in Double Indemnity? I don't think so but here, we're led to believe Dede 'sees all'. The Opposite of Sex is a film that tries to be clever when it's just being silly; it tries to be engaging when really, it's just dragging things out. I find it remarkable how Dede has to go through all of what she does just so she can deliver her closing monologue about the point of active sex lives – she went looking for trouble and she found it whilst knowing the what the consequences might be. Not clever, not particularly funny and as for 'making me cry', well – give me some characters to get involved with next time and maybe, just maybe I'll watch your film with some tissues.