Perfectly adorable

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Roughly the first half of this movie was OK. Ivan Sergei was lovable and Christina Ricci was amusingly cynical.Eventually both Ivan and his character seemed overwhelmed by Lisa Kudrow's irritating and grating personality and Martin Donovan's total absence of personality. It was somewhere near the midpoint in the film that Lisa delivered what seemed like an endless sermon to the listless Martin. It was like listening to someone drag her finger nails across a chalkboard but less interesting. And it was about at this point where Christina's cynicism ceased being amusing and became depressing.I never got on board with the idea that Ivan/Matt could find Martin/Bill sexually attractive or that anyone at Bill's school or the larger community could feel anything, much less sympathy, for the slug-like Bill. I gather that Lyle Lovett is a successful singer. It's nice to know he can do something well. Towards the end of the film it seemed everyone was winging it, just trying to tie up loose ends with whatever came to mind in the hope that it might distract the audience from the realization that more than 1 1/2 hours of their lives had just evaporated.

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

I really wanted to like this movie, but I didn't. It just didn't work -too long basically to carry the annoying personalities.Christina Ricci's DeeDee is a case in point. First they make the 18 year old Christina look 20 and cast her as a 16 year old. Yes the character is pretentious but it didn't work.Second you just don't like the characters after a while. Lisa Kudrow quirky but after a while, get a life Lucia. Bill the patient lover, get over it your love is dead and your lover is an idiot. Strangely the only character that didn't get old or stale was the over the top Jason. That I suspect was because he got just little enough screen time.10 minutes in I would have given it an 8 as it was it got a 5 and only because it started so well.

The Opposite of Sex is a black comedy. Black comedy is an acquired taste; you either hate it or love it, there's no in between. With that said, I love this movie. Granted that I can see why many people don't like this movie, I would still recommend The Opposite of Sex as well worth taking a look.The Opposite of Sex is about Dedee Truitt (an exquisite performance by the ever-talented Christina Ricci) a precocious, cynical, sharp-tongued, foul-mouthed and manipulative teen temptress who, after flicking her cigarette and smashing her chair onto her stepfather's coffin at his funeral, runs away from home to move in with her gay half-brother, Bill (Martin Donovan) and his sexy young lover, Matt (Ivan Sergei). Dedee seduces Matt and only after she has sex with him does Dedee reveal that she is pregnant. Things get very complicated very quickly as Dedee convinces Matt to run away with her yet again along with Bill's money and the ashes of his dead lover, only to dump Matt for Randy Cates (William Lee Scott), Dedee's psychotic ex-boyfriend, all the while Jason Bock (Johnny Galecki), a former high school student and Matt's other boyfriend, accuses Bill of a crime he didn't do after Bill doesn't tell him where Matt has gone to.There's are reasons why I would recommend this movie to others and reasons why I wouldn't. The reasons why I would recommend The Opposite of Sex is the following: a fresh, cliché-free plot, the clever dialogue and, most of all, the performance by Christina Ricci. The little girl who started out in Mermaids, the two Addams Family movies and Casper truly has gone far in her career. The Ice Storm may have been her first non-kid friendly adult role, but I would honestly have to say that The Opposite of Sex is what firmly cemented her as a mature actress all the while saying that the little girl who played Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family, The Addams Family Values and Kat Harvey in Casper has grown up is moving on with her career, something that many other child stars (here's looking at you, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and Lindsay Lohan!) can't seem to do. In addition with that, her performance as Dedee Truitt is something that has to be seen to be believed; Christina makes us, the audience hate and love Dedee at the same time. How she never got that Golden Globe she was nominated for or an Oscar for that matter is beyond me.Now the reasons why I wouldn't recommend this movie. As I said in my title black comedy isn't something for everyone. Combined with the fact that this movie is also VERY unpolitcally correct as well as that half the characters in this movie are gay (yes, I know it's a stupid reason to hate a movie because it has gay characters, but a lot of idiots on IMDb practically throw a fit over this movie for that reason). The tagline of the movie "You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be offended!" isn't lying. If you love black comedy you'll laugh, if you don't you'll just end up crying and being offended. I personally think that's why there's so many negative comments about this movie both in other reviews and on the message boards: people sat down watching this movie thinking that it going to be harmless entertainment, only go get a slap in face from darkness and the context of the movie.So to conclude, I'll just say again that I love The Opposite of Sex and again say who will enjoy this movie and who won't.People who will like/love The Opposite of Sex: fans of dark/black comedy, fans of Christina Ricci and people who want to watch a movie that is bold, daring and original.People who will dislike/hate The Opposite of Sex: the easily offended, Politcaly Correct Nazis, homophobes and people who don't like and/or don't understand dark/black comedy.Personal rating: 9/10