The Opposite of Sex

What passes for independent films these days seems to have confused irony with voiceover narration. Last week director Noah Baumbach spoiled a catchy concept in his Mr. Jealousy by belaboring it with his tiresome commentary. This week, in Don Roos's insufferable The Opposite of Sex, we're harangued throughout its smarmy, pseudo-hip shenanigans by the smug asides of Christina Ricci, who's fast becoming the Monica Lewinsky of indie cinema.

She's teenage tough cookie Dedee Truitt, whose opening pronouncement that good-hearted people are boring and only crass, amoral predators like herself are cool proves correct only on the first count. Tricked up as a Baby Doll for the '90s, she leaves the Louisiana funeral of her abusive stepfather to crash in on her half-brother Bill (Martin Donovan), a long-suffering high-school English teacher in Indiana. In short order she seduces Bill's dumb but studly lover Matt (Ivan Sergei) and sets off a series of misadventures whose contrivance is exceeded only by their bad taste. Incapable even of maintaining its black-comic, anarchic pose without slipping into hypocritical sentimentality, this film proves the opposite not only of sex but of everything else that is passionate, spontaneous, human, and fun.

-- Peter Keough