Gezien in: Luxor, Rotterdam d.d. 30-1-1999 Ik heb het te druk om nu iets over mijn iffr-avonturen te
vertellen. Dat komt nog wel. De meest stuitende film van het festival vond
ik met afstand The Opposite of Sex. In de Amerikaanse pers wordt daar door
negen van de tien reviewers heel anders over gedacht, tot mijn verbazing en
ergernis. The Opposite heeft alle pretenties van "There's Something about
Mary voor-het-betere-publiek". Het eerste kwartier lachte ik me een ongeluk,
daarna steeds minder, en het laatste half uur wachtte ik grimmig op het
einde. Het had niet veel langer moeten duren. Hieronder volgt de mening van
een kritische inzender op imdb. Hij is niet representatief, want de meerheid
van de lezers legt uit hoe vreselijk grappig de film is en hoe fantastisch
de voice-over van Christina Ricci (die mij door merg en been ging). Waarom
zou ik zelf een verhaal schrijven als deze overzeese filmliefhebber me de
woorden uit de mond haalt? Trust me.
-------------------
anonymous
Burlington, Canada
Date: 12 December 1998
Summary: The only interesting thing about this movie was seeing Lisa Kudrow
play a non-Friend.
I bet any snotty, "cooler-than-thou" 15 year olds who saw The Opposite of
Sex were quoting DeDee's snitty little one-liners for weeks afterward; I,
personally, thought the movie SUCKED. Dedee's running monologue was annoying
and completely lacking in insight and her character had no depth at all.
The movie's creators either take themselves way too seriously or think the
audience is made up of drooling idiots: Ricci's voiceover begins with her
"explaining the plot" because it's complicated (it isn't). Snide little
asides throughout the film help us to figure out what's going on in case
we're too damned stupid to stick with the program (we're not. Or *I'm*
not...). The plot is this: there's this chick named DeDee who's a giant
bitch. DeDee screws over her family in various ways, goes on the lam, and
the folks she betrayed pursue her across the country. Since the film stays
at a completely superficial level, never showing us any of DeDee's
motivations or even allowing her to seem remotely human, we don't care WHAT
happens to her. Thus the movie becomes very tedious, very fast.
The capper: commercials for the movie promised that DeDee "didn't have a
heart of gold and wouldn't grow one by the end of the movie." "Good," I
thought, "no sappy ending." Wrong. They put in a sappy ending after all. In
my eyes, this movie was a failure on every possible level--it even failed to
be hip and cynical, which I thought was its whole point. I really like
Christina Ricci but it'll be awhile before I can forgive her for this. | 
