Sex and Breakfast
Perhaps the
most shocking moment of Sex and Breakfast comes in the very first
scene. It shows Macauley Kulkin as James, naked in bed, finishing a
rousing sexual rendez-vous and then watching it back on videotape as
his girlfriend goes to the bathroom.
The Home
Alone kid is a perv?
Not that
there's anything wrong with that.
Now I know
it's not fair to hold his past as a child star against him. Also, I do
know that in his rare adult roles like this and Party Monster Culkin has done his best to prove himself to be an adult... perhaps even to
an excessive amount. Still, somehow I missed Party Monster
(like most of the rest of the world), so this was my first exposure to the
new, adult Mac.
However
again, through no fault of his own he still looks so young and has such
similar features that even as I watched him perusing his own homemade porn
tape I couldn't help but flashback on him making a giant pancake with his
Uncle Buck.
Of course,
Sex and Breakfast is somewhat built to shock and titillate though
it does so with a soberness and somewhat jaded view of sex and romance so
I guess it is not such a leap that they would hire such a recognizable
(though, granted, long out of the spotlight) childhood face and then try to reinvent
our perception of the man.
Sex and
Breakfast tries to be a very new-agey look at troubled relationships in
Los Angeles of the new millennium, and yet strangely it feels very
old-fashioned, like a movie from the 1970s (The Harrad Experiment
comes specifically to mind) which has somehow been time-warped into the
modern day.
Culkin
plays James, a young guy who is involved with Heather (Alexis Dziena, who is
probably best known for playing Sharon Stone's precocious daughter in
Broken Flowers). She is beautiful, free-spirited and sexually
adventurous. They are in love. The only problem is he can't seem
to get her to come to orgasm.
Not far
away (at least geographically, they are a world apart in lifestyles) are
Renee (Eliza Dushku of Buffy and Tru Calling) and Ellis (Kuno
Becker of the Goal movies). Their sexual dysfunction is more
difficult to pinpoint other than the fact that they are in love and plan
to get married, yet seem to have no understanding of each others' sexual
needs and fantasies.
These two
couples do not realize that the others exist (though it turns out that they
do frequent the same coffee shop). However, soon their lives will be
intertwined intimately.
Both
couples go to a seminar by a popular sex-therapist/psychologist (Joanna
Miles), which promises to bring physical and emotional intimacy to couples
who are having trouble connecting.
The
prescription from this world-renowned therapist? Why not give swinging
a try?
Yes, that's
right. A couple is having trouble connecting sexually and emotionally,
so maybe they just need to invite another couple in to join them in bed.
Nope...
can't see this going badly.
And where
do I sign up for this seminar?
Not that
I'm knocking swinging. It's been going on for as long as mankind has
existed and many couples worldwide are comfortable with it. However,
it doesn't seem like something to solve relationship problems. I would
assume that a couple would have to be very secure in their bond in order to
be intimate with another couple.
None of
these four seem all that sure about where they are as a pair.
Experimenting with another couple will either bring them closer together or
tear them apart. So when it ends up driving a wedge between the
couples before one decides to hang on to what they have and the other breaks
up no one in the audience is really surprised. Only the characters
didn't seem to see it coming.
Strangely,
for an R-rated film about four beautiful young people obsessing about
fucking, Sex and Breakfast is oddly restrained and chaste. The
sex scenes are short and inexplicit. However, the couples discussing
the meaning of the sex seems to last forever.
In the end,
Sex and Breakfast is neither as insightful nor as titillating as it
wants to be.
Dave
Strohler
Copyright ©2008 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved.
Posted: February 2, 2008.
