Sex, lies, and videotape
Revisiting Soderbergh’s Sundance breakout.
Scripted in just eight days and shot for little more than $1m, Steven Soderbergh’s debut came from nowhere to win an Audience Award at Sundance, followed by the Palme d’Or in Cannes, an Oscar nod and a stack more gongs. A new voice had arrived in American cinema.
Set (and shot) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Sex, Lies, And Videotape is essentially a four-hander. Ann (Andie MacDowell) is married to slick lawyer John (Peter Gallagher), who’s secretly getting it on with Ann’s younger sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo).
This triangle is disrupted by the arrival of John’s old schoolfriend Graham (James Spader). Quiet and diffident, he intrigues Ann, confiding to her that he’s impotent. But when he reveals he gets off from watching videotapes he’s made of women
detailing their sexual experiences, she’s appalled. Cynthia, though, is fascinated.
True, the erotic tapings now look, in the age of social media, dated. But the film’s fluency and wit still appeal. MacDowell has never been better, and Spader hones his ambiguous charm to insidious effect. As for San Giacomo, her scene-stealing turn makes you wonder why her career’s never taken off the way it deserved. This Criterion edition offers a 4K transfer plus new extras (documentary, Soderbergh answering fans’ questions). Philip Kemp