The Opposite of Sex

Cue Space's 1997 quasi-hit Female of the Species. Christina Ricci, as the most lethal Lolita since the aforementioned Linda Fiorentino, is much more deadly than the male. At sixteen, her character Dee Dee has already learned how to manipulate men twice her age into doing whatever she pleases, including but not limited to theft and murder. But those are child's play. The really impressive feat is successfully seducing the boyfriend of her older half brother. And even that was done with relative ease.

Dee Dee escapes her rural Louisiana home life with her mother and recently deceased stepfather and hitails it to Indiana, where her half brother Bill is a teacher. He takes her in, buying her line that she is in a grieving state over her stepfather (ha) and needs time to recover separate from her mother. Then she starts executing her master plan, which leads to bribery, extortion, and Los Angeles (insert symbolism comment here). What had me howling was Ricci's narration. It had enough venom to kill a cobra, and was a pleasant change of pace to the typical narrative movies take.

Ricci is already in indie darling, which must have been a pretty tough move for a girl who got her start as Wednesday Addams and Casper's girlfriend. But she is just toxic here, fulfilling her promise as an actress to watch, and she's still just a kid. And while Ricci did a great job, Lisa Kudrow actually steals the movie as Lucia, the sister of Bill's now dead boyfriend Tom. Lucia was so close with Tom that she's ingratiated herself into Bill's life because she has nothing else, the terminally single, bitter spinster. If they're smart, the other five Friends are taking detailed notes on what Kudrow did right with this part. Well, perhaps just the male Friends should pay close attention

Sure, a movie about sixteen year olds screwing gay himbos is not exactly the recipe for a blockbuster. But The Opposite of Sex was well done, smart, and a good antidote to the way Hollywood normally treats gay characters, as well as straight ones.