Sex, Lies, and Videotape (Blu-ray)

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Like Pecos Bill or Paul Bunyan, some films just keep growing until they acquire legendary status. "Body Heat" is one such film. So is "Sex, Lies, and Videotape," an indie that launched Steven Soderbergh's career and set Cannes on fire, winning the Palm d'Or and also snagging the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Soderbergh even received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay. And the sexy title certainly didn't hurt.

It's a proficient film, but I'm not sure that it deserves its iconic status, unless you think of it as the Curt Flood of independent filmmaking. Flood was the center fielder for the Cardinals who refused to accept a trade, and it was his stand that led to a new era in baseball. In a way, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" did the same thing for indie filmmaking. People suddenly started looking and indie films differently. They were soon after considered viable entertainment that could rival big-studio offerings, rather than just self-indulgent or esoteric exercises in filmmaking that were destined for art houses and nothing more.

"Sex, Lies, and Videotape" was a breakout film for Andie MacDowell, too, who'd previously only done "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes," and, like the "can't stand 'em" actress in "Singin' in the Rain," had to suffer the indignity of having her voice dubbed . . . in her case, with Glenn Close's. In "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" MacDowell earns respect playing a sexually repressed wife who's in therapy--though probably everyone else in the film ought to be.

Soderbergh, who wrote the screenplay, knows people and he knows sexual dynamics. As a result, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" could pass for a clinical study, albeit a voyeuristic one. And even that shows Soderbergh's savvy when it comes to understanding human nature. The whole film appeals to a collectively repressed voyeuristic side that Soderbergh trusts viewers have. And it presents a little morality play that begs audiences to identify with one character or another, then asks them to reconsider. So who is to blame? The distant wife, Ann, who tells her therapist that she thinks sex is overrated and has never initiated physical contact with her husband (with whom she's had no relations for a long time,) or the smarmy husband, John (Peter Gallagher), who has a tendency to lie and cheat . . . not just with any woman, but with his wife's sister, for cryin' out loud. Was she picking up on his vibes? His deceitful personality? Or did she drive him to do what he did/does? And what about her sister, the free-spirited Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo), who tends bar and seems driven to make up for her sister's lost (sexual) time. There's a sibling thing going on here, but just as they make an effort to stay friends despite huge differences, viewers are asked to not judge either of them too quickly. Who's the actor and who's the reactor? And with whom does Soderbergh want us to side? That's not always clear, and it's one main reason why this film succeeds.

Then, just like Ray Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes," along comes an old college buddy of John's whom he hasn't seen for nine years, and John invites him to stay at the house without consulting his wife, who now has another thing to talk about in therapy with her shrink (Ron Vawter). Graham (James Spader) is an artsy fellow, and so of course he appeals to Cynthia, who paints. But he seems infinitely more sensitive, perceptive, and honest than John, and so that also makes him appealing to Ann. Yes, you can see this coming, but Soderbergh handles the sexual tension in an interesting way. Despite the title, there's no nudity, and it's only suggested that anyone ever has sex-profanity, that's another story. But as a result, the tension builds and continues to build, with anticipation that promises to lead to something more, always more. That tension is stoked by Soderbergh's decision to go with silence in the background throughout most of the film, and it really is deafening at times.

At the center of this "foursome" narrative is Graham's own sexual fetish: for whatever reason, he can only get off by taping women talking about sex, then later masturbating while he watches. Kinky? You bet. But lest we take any of this too seriously, Soderbergh throws a barfly (Steven Brill) into the mix for comic relief, just to remind us that sexual politics can be as funny as they are sad. In keeping with the voyeuristic theme, Soderbergh gives us a rough-looking film that milks real-time for all it's worth. But "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" is a slow-moving film, made more so because we can see things coming. It's like watching a train wreck in slow-motion, knowing what's around the bend . . . or rather, what could be around the bend. It's the potential for things to happen that ultimately drives the film--that, and questions of morality and blame that both invite and defy speculation.