Sexuality doesn't have to be about showing skin or even about the act of sex itself. Sometimes just talking about it can be enough and often times more satisfying and rewarding than the physical sensation. The seduction of words, the sharing of your most personal and intimate secrets, baring yourself completely from the inside can prove far more powerful as shown in sex, lies and videotape.
Ann is a sexually repressed woman who blushes and laughs nervously whenever the topic of sex is brought up. She is married to John who is having an affair with her sister Cynthia, who is Ann's polar opposite. John's old college friend Graham comes to visit and his very presence stirs things up for everybody.
One day when Ann and Graham are having lunch, Ann reveals to him "I think sex is overrated." Graham responds by saying that he is impotent and thus hasn't had much sex himself either. That isn't to say he is not sexual, however. The only way he can get off is by videotaping women talking about sex. When Ann notices his vast videotape collection with women's names on them, he tells her and she freaks out. But is she more freaked out by Graham's perversions or by her own realization that she could never be one of the subjects on the tapes?
Cynthia has a different reaction to the tapes and readily agrees to be recorded, much to the disgust of John and Ann. She understands the implication of the tapes, the power of the secrets they hold and to confessing her inner most thoughts. It is an erotically charged scene with no skin or physical contact; they just talk and it is hot.
The film's relationships progress the way you'd expect them to. Ann and John have their problems and John and Cynthia's affair is nothing more than that, but the key relationship as we knew it would be from the beginning is between Ann and Graham. Ann goes to him to be taped and the session proves to have a greater effect on Graham than her. The two complicated characters try to make sense of why they are the way they are. The scene is handled with great care, nothing too fancy, just them taking it out and it works. The whole film just worked for me as I was totally engrossed from start to finish.
A lot of times when I watch movies I will occasionally check my phone or pop up a web page to look at, but I didn't even notice the text messages I missed because I was so focused on the film. Really good movie.
Apparently Steven Soderbergh's sex, lies and videotape was somewhat of a landmark for independent American cinema as it brought attention to rising American director-writers Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith and the Coen Brothers.
Grade: A
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