When you're making a movie and the best thing about it is "The Facts of Life" Mindy Cohn's performance as a lesbian secretary, you've got problems.
Sex and Death 101 is a movie that tries to tell one-and-a-quarter stories. One full story is about Roderick Blank (Simon Baker), a guy who's all ready to settle down and get married when he gets a list in his e-mail. The list is the names of all the people he's ever going to have sex with but while there are 101 names on the list, Roderick has only had sex with 29 women so far. So over the next year, Roderick uses the list as a guide to boink his way through the other 72 names. The quarter of a story concerns Death Nell (Winona Rider), a woman who's taking men that have been abusive or disrespectful of woman and putting them into comas. I say it's a quarter of a story, because even though you know Roderick and Death Nell will be getting together, her role is barely more than a glorified cameo.
Firstly, this film is a great example that you shouldn't make a whimsical romantic comedy with a writer/director who not only doesn't understand women, he doesn't even understand men. There's a scene where Roderick and his two guy friends are talking and watching a football game. There's a big play, the guys jump up to celebrate, then fall into a pile on the floor where they lay next to each other and talk for about a minute. Guys don't lie next to each other on the floor and have conversations. Young girls may do that. Straight men do not. I don't even think gay guys do that, and that's the level of understanding Daniel Waters brings to the story.
That lack of wisdom doesn't completely cripple the film, because understanding human behavior isn't necessary if none of your characters are real human beings in any sense of the word. The characters in Sex and Death 101 are clever, colorful and occasionally funny, but there's not a single moment when you actually feel anything for any of them. The movie deals with the implications of knowing which women absolutely will and which absolutely won't have sex with you in a detached fashion, but then forces poor Simon Baker to ridiculously overact when the story suddenly dictates that Roderick have an emotional crisis by falling in love with a girl who's not on the list.
There is some decent female nudity in the film, but not from any of the big name actresses (not even Mindy Cohn) and it's all in the first half, before the story gets all wrapped up in the mysterious entity that sent the list to Roderick and how his story is intersecting with Death Nell's. And maybe I've never noticed it before, but there's something seriously off about Winona Rider's nose in this movie. There are these very odd double ridges on the bridge of her nose that I don't recall ever being that distinct before.
Fundamentally, the trouble with Sex and Death 101 is that it lacks balls, and I don't mean male nudity. The subjects of predestination, exploitation and manipulation it deals with are fairly dark but the movie always keeps them at arm's length. It's too delicate to mine the laughs out of the raw pain of Roderick's predicaments, so the humor never rises above the sitcom level, with the jokes telegraphed so clearly that you can see them coming during the movie you watch before you watch Sex and Death 101. So, it's not an unfunny movie, but it is one that you laugh at almost as much as you laugh with.
Sex and Death 101 is a movie that tries to tell one-and-a-quarter stories. One full story is about Roderick Blank (Simon Baker), a guy who's all ready to settle down and get married when he gets a list in his e-mail. The list is the names of all the people he's ever going to have sex with but while there are 101 names on the list, Roderick has only had sex with 29 women so far. So over the next year, Roderick uses the list as a guide to boink his way through the other 72 names. The quarter of a story concerns Death Nell (Winona Rider), a woman who's taking men that have been abusive or disrespectful of woman and putting them into comas. I say it's a quarter of a story, because even though you know Roderick and Death Nell will be getting together, her role is barely more than a glorified cameo.
Firstly, this film is a great example that you shouldn't make a whimsical romantic comedy with a writer/director who not only doesn't understand women, he doesn't even understand men. There's a scene where Roderick and his two guy friends are talking and watching a football game. There's a big play, the guys jump up to celebrate, then fall into a pile on the floor where they lay next to each other and talk for about a minute. Guys don't lie next to each other on the floor and have conversations. Young girls may do that. Straight men do not. I don't even think gay guys do that, and that's the level of understanding Daniel Waters brings to the story.
That lack of wisdom doesn't completely cripple the film, because understanding human behavior isn't necessary if none of your characters are real human beings in any sense of the word. The characters in Sex and Death 101 are clever, colorful and occasionally funny, but there's not a single moment when you actually feel anything for any of them. The movie deals with the implications of knowing which women absolutely will and which absolutely won't have sex with you in a detached fashion, but then forces poor Simon Baker to ridiculously overact when the story suddenly dictates that Roderick have an emotional crisis by falling in love with a girl who's not on the list.
There is some decent female nudity in the film, but not from any of the big name actresses (not even Mindy Cohn) and it's all in the first half, before the story gets all wrapped up in the mysterious entity that sent the list to Roderick and how his story is intersecting with Death Nell's. And maybe I've never noticed it before, but there's something seriously off about Winona Rider's nose in this movie. There are these very odd double ridges on the bridge of her nose that I don't recall ever being that distinct before.
Fundamentally, the trouble with Sex and Death 101 is that it lacks balls, and I don't mean male nudity. The subjects of predestination, exploitation and manipulation it deals with are fairly dark but the movie always keeps them at arm's length. It's too delicate to mine the laughs out of the raw pain of Roderick's predicaments, so the humor never rises above the sitcom level, with the jokes telegraphed so clearly that you can see them coming during the movie you watch before you watch Sex and Death 101. So, it's not an unfunny movie, but it is one that you laugh at almost as much as you laugh with.