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A Disappointing Continuation

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Remember that old song that says 'Sometimes it's hard to be a woman'. Well, its a message that a movie like 'Female Perversions' tries to communicate over and over and over until it exhausts it's own theme. I'm sure that it may be hard for some women to succeed in the business world but this movie goes about it in a self-piteous and irritating way.The movie concerns a young lawyer named Eve who is frustrated every minute of every day because she has to fit a certain mold, 'play ball' so to speak to compete in order to further her own career. She is in line for a judgeship so with every fiber of femininity she is overly frustrated. So competitive is Eve that when she sees another woman in the ladies room putting on the same color lipstick she throws hers in the trash.Eve seems to use sex as a punctuation mark, as affirmation that women like sex too. She has a strange affair with an executive (Clancy Brown) who likes to perform their sexual circus tricks in his office (he seems to get off on being caught). In an elevator one day she picks up a woman and begins a brief affair with her before being told 'I'm not ready for this kind of relationship'.Eve always seems to be cracking up and escapes into sexual fantasies involving bondage at the hands of lip smacking males. She fantasizes that she is being instructed by an older woman to express herself sexually and open up.Another problem: Eve has a sister, Madelyn, who lives in the country and compulsively shoplifts. Madelyn's shoplifting is giving Eve fits because she's afraid that it will cause as scandal and this is not the kind of black eye her career needs. The contrast between Eve and Madelyn are so obvious that you can see it written on the page – Eve is a career woman, Madelyn is a student, Eve dresses in power suits while Madelyn dresses casually.Tilda Swinton whom I have adored in films like 'The Ballad of Little Jo' and 'Orlando' got on my nerves in the first half hour of the film. She's suppose to be strong willed and always fighting for what she wants but all I saw was a frustrated tinderbox, a pouty irritating woman who would be better off if she would just settle down and have a little decaf.

The title of this film is dangerously misleading because the film might be thought to be pornographic, and many people who might otherwise find it interesting will not see it. (The contrary is also the case, that all the wrong people will want to watch it because they are titillated by the title. They will also react with violent antipathy, in the wake of their disappointment. The choice of title seems to have been a deliberate act of provocation.) The German title, translated, is 'Fantasies of a Woman', which is rather milder. The film is a feminist essay, and the title is intended to be ironical, the 'female perversions' referred to being those imposed upon women by a conventional male-dominated society, so that for instance being a housewife is regarded as one type of 'female perversion'. It seems somehow natural that the wildly experimental Tilda Swinton would have to be in this film: indeed, how could she say no? How could such a film be made without her? She seems to be everywhere that people and films are pushing the envelope. As usual, she is breathtakingly brilliant. A surprising addition to the cast is Frances Fisher, who made such an impact as Angie, the red-headed waitress in the diner, in the intriguing television series 'Strange Luck' in 1995-6, at about this same time. Here she does some rather unnerving 'exotic dance' routines, which all goes to show something, I'm still trying to decide what, but whatever the reason for this is, she does it very well and one would think she had been a stripper or a showgirl all her life if one did not know she had instead been an actress. Tilda Swinton is electric here as a career gal who is so tense she might snap like a wire stretched too taut. She is about to be made a judge, God help us! (Many judges are crazy or weird anyway, but she would be more so than most, as the film makes all too clear.) Tilda Swinton portrays an extreme neurotic, and 'looking good' is essential to her, so she is always doing and re-doing her lipstick (an insecure woman's last refuge). She is a control freak and insanely superstitious. For instance, if she cannot wear her white suit for an interview with the Governor of California (not Arnie, a fictional one) for a judgeship, because it is 'lucky', she falls apart. Her kleptomaniac sister sees to it that she cannot wear the suit to the interview. Things are pretty tense like this throughout, and there are many fantasy elements to this film written, produced, and directed by women with women for women. I don't believe this film can really be excused by a 'women searching for their identities' justification, and if one approaches it earnestly from that angle (which may have been the earnest intention of the makers, for all I know), it is a failure which verges on parody sometimes, and has pretentious aspects. The merits of the film are different, and concern the intensity of portrayal and the mysterious depths of character revealed, especially of hidden or suppressed motivations. The lesbian aspects of the film are not central, but merely a part of the evolving self-realization of Tilda Swinton's character. I am firmly convinced that men can never understand women and women can never understand men. I first came to realize this in my teens when the novelist Pearl Buck said to me that 'men and women are completely different species and can never hope to understand one another'. That shocked me a lot, I never forgot it, and it has been repeatedly verified. I have now come to the conclusion that Nature has designed things this way. The imperative of Nature is the propagation of the species. If men and women understood each other, that would get in the way of propagation, and many fewer babies would be born. Consequently, evolutionary pressures have seen to it that this can never happen, in order to safeguard the future of the species. That is why men like myself who do not regard women as inferior beings (as many of my gender definitely do) are so intrigued by 'the mystery of women' and interested to see attempts to make films like this one where women contemplate women and try to understand themselves. It is true that there are no admirable characters on offer here, and that they are all pretty horrible people. Nevertheless, this film manages to be fascinating, although it is understandable that it would cause a lot of contradictory reactions, some of them violently opposed to it, and some admiring and appreciative. If we want films to punch us in the ribs instead of putting us to sleep, this one certainly qualifies. This is what is called 'independent film making', and long may it continue.

On not becoming archetypal FEMALE PERVERSIONS, based upon FEMALE PERVERSIONS: THE TEMPTATIONS OF EMMA BOVARY (by Louise Kaplan) is a good indie movie about a particular woman , also about women's world and female representation of the world. I enjoyed it a lot, and took it in with delight. The cast is really distinguished.I feared some experimental junk, but no, the movie is interesting and well—conceived and marvelously written, more interesting than any conventionally suspenseful flick.It's one of the few good American movies of the '90s. And the fact is that Streitfeld (unknown to me) rolls the ball. She gets the ball rolling and shows she means business.Very art-house, very indie, FEMALE PERVERSIONS is directed by Susan Streitfeld, written by Julie Hebert and Susan Streitfeld, and performed by Tilda Swinton, Amy Madigan (as 'Evelyn''s sister), Karen Sillas (as the psychiatrist, Renée, Evelyn's lover), Frances Fisher, Marcia Cross (whose fans should be aware that her tits are on display in this movie!), Paulina Porizkova (as Langley, Evie's rival). They're all pretty fine girls.In the nude scenes, the genitalia are unfortunately blurred; in exchange, almost each actress displays her tits—beginning with Mrs. Swinton, of course; then Amy Madigan, Karen Sillas, Frances Fisher, Marcia Cross—so, a tits parade. These girls honestly show what they got. Swinton, Sillas, Cross have awesome bodies.Mrs. Swinton is indeed beautiful and she delivers a fine performance. Poor Evelyn is a woman of career; she is beautiful, ambitious, angry, neurotic, insecure, sexually voracious, puzzled, confused, scared, morally degenerate; sexuality and career are the two coordinates of her life ,and she's consumed by her sexual desires. It's a nice, sharp study in comportment and reactions, an identity quest. The story has some kind of a psychoanalytical twist; Evie reaches to a childhood trauma. A bit naturalistic, a bit expressionist as well, the movie is a wholly feminine creation, hence somewhat viscous. There are grotesque and fancy touches as well. 'We all dream.' That's hardcore indie, babe.

I just watched this film on TV. No all of it. I didn't catch the beginning. But, I am still shaking. Low budget, feminism, exacerbated sexuality, irony. Remember the scene were the governor says something about his children? I think that is a clue there. Maybe the old values of family are praised here, in a glimpse. Maybe the sincerity is not neglected. This film is not a feminist lecture. But it have all the points of view inside. It is like a chamber with mirrors where an object reflects different in every of them.I give this film a well deserved 9 of 10. Very good.