James Spader
Graham
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Sep 22, 1989 · Sex, Lies, and Videotape: Directed by Steven Soderbergh. With James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, Laura San Giacomo. A sexually repressed woman's husband is having an affair with her sister.
- (58K)
- Drama
- Steven Soderbergh
- 1989-09-22
- Plot
- Cast
- Production
- Reception and Legacy
- Home Media
- Adaptations
- Full Frontal: "An Unofficial Sequel of Sorts"
- Possible Sequel
- External Links
Ann Bishop Mullany lives in Baton Rouge, unhappily but comfortably married to John, a successful lawyer. She is in therapy, where she reveals that she is repulsed by the idea of John touching her. Graham Dalton, an old close college friend of John and now a drifterwith some money saved up, visits Baton Rouge to see John and perhaps stay in the city...
The film was written by Steven Soderbergh in eight days on a yellow legal pad during a cross country trip (although, as Soderbergh points out in his DVD commentary track, he had been thinking about the film for a year). Soderbergh's commentary also reveals that he had written Andie MacDowell's role with Elizabeth McGovern in mind, but McGovern's ag...
Box office
Sex, Lies, and Videotape opened in a limited release on August 4, 1989, in 4 theaters and grossed $155,982, with an average of 30 patrons per showing in the first 2–3 weeks; the studio released the film nationwide. The widest release for the film was 534 theaters and it ended up earning $24,741,667 in the United States,and around $36.74 million worldwide.
Critical response
Sex, Lies, and Videotape was well received in its initial release in 1989 and holds a "certified fresh" rating of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 52 reviews with an average score of 8.00/10. The consensus states "In his feature directorial debut, Steven Soderbergh demonstrates a mastery of his craft well beyond his years, pulling together an outstanding cast and an intelligent script for a nuanced, mature film about neurosis and human sexuality." The film also has a score of 86 out of 100 on...
Accolades
At the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, the film won the Palme d'Or and the FIPRESCI Prize, with Spader getting the Best Actor Award. It also won an Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Soderbergh was nominated for an Academy Awardfor his screenplay.
The DVD includes a "director's dialogue" between Soderbergh and playwright/director Neil LaBute, recorded in 1998. LaBute's presence leads to conversational tangents unrelated to the film, although most of the tangents are related to the question of what it means to be a director, and are intended, as Soderbergh summarizes at the end, to "demystify...
The movie was presented as a staged play in Hollywood at the Next Stage from December 13, 2003 to January 17, 2004. Directed by Seth Wiley and a cast that featured Amanda Bauman (Ann), Emily Williams (Therapist), Shauna Slade (Cynthia), Justin Christenson (Graham), and Jack Sundmacher (John).
A sequel was announced in 2001 and Catherine Keener was the first actor attached to the project, named How to Survive a Hotel Room Fire. It was billed by Miramax as "an unofficial sequel of sorts." In October it was announced the movie would star Julia Roberts, David Hyde Pierce, and David Duchovny. After the September 11 attacks, the title was cha...
In May 2020, Soderbergh revealed that he wrote a sequel during the coronavirus quarantine.In December of that year, he stated that the sequel would be "about the two sisters 30 years later. One of them has had a child who is about the same age that she was in the original." He also said that MacDowell and San Giacomo agreed to reprise their roles.
Sex, Lies, and Videotape at IMDbSex, Lies, and Videotape at the TCM Movie DatabaseSex, Lies, and Videotape at Box Office MojoSex, Lies, and Videotape at Rotten Tomatoes- Walt Lloyd
- Steven Soderbergh
- Steven Soderbergh
- Nancy Tenenbaum, John Hardy, Robert Newmyer
The story of “sex, lies, and videotape” is by now part of movie folklore: how writer-director Steven Soderbergh, at 29, wrote the screenplay in eight days during a trip to Los Angeles, how the film was made for $1.8 million, how it won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, as well as the best actor prize for Spader.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars • Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 09/15/23 Full Review Wayne K The breakout film for Steven Soderbergh, and a catalyst for the glorious independent movie boom of the 1990s, Sex Lies ...
- (54)
- Steven Soderbergh
- R
- James Spader
Written in eight days on a trip to Los Angeles by first-time feature director Stephen Soderbergh, and shot in five weeks on a meager $1.2 million budget, the film tells the story of Graham (James Spader), who visits old friend John (Peter Gallager), and engages John's wife (Andie McDowell), and her sister (Laura San Giacomo) in his unique method of overcoming his unusual sexual dysfunction.
- (17)
- Steven Soderbergh
- R
sex, lies, and videotape. With his provocative feature debut, twenty-six-year-old Steven Soderbergh trained his focus on the complexities of human intimacy and deception in the modern age. Housewife Ann (Andie MacDowell) feels distant from her lawyer husband, John (Peter Gallagher), who is sleeping with her sister, Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo).
10. Written by William on October 20, 2013. Ann, a frustrated wife, enters into counseling due to a troubled marriage. Unbeknownst to her, her husband John has begun an affair with her sister. When John’s best friend Graham arrives, his penchant for interviewing women about their sex lives forever changes John and Ann’s rocky marriage.
