Great Film overall

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It's been more than 48 hours since I watched this pitiful exercise in ego masturbation disguised as film, and I still can not erase that truly vile scene of the narrator receiving oral sex, out of my mind. While I can admire anyone willing to open up and bare their soul on camera warts and all, throughout the entire movie, I never once got the feeling that the director/star ever felt a bit of remorse that his obsession with hookers lead to the demise of several of his relationships with women. He also comes across as an egomaniac as well: none of the real women he was in relationships with look anything like the porn stars he used in the reenactments.Find a better way to waste 90 minutes of your life.

This film chronicles director Zahedi's addiction to prostitutes over the course of many, many years, and presents an honest and realistic portrait of sexual compulsions and fetishes. Of interest as well are Zahedi's attempts to reconcile his oft violent sexual fantasies with his various attempts at healthy relationships. One has to wonder how true to life Zahedi's portraits of his relationships are, except maybe for his final relationship, but they make for an interesting depiction of dysfunctional and atypical 'romantic' relationships either way.The film's humor genuinely works. As many moving, sad, and let's be honest- pathetic moments there clearly were in Zahedi's life, he is able to portray them in a humorous self-deprecating light, which is testament to his talent as a filmmaker, because these events could very easily have made one of the most disturbing and real pure dramas put on film, but Zahedi's Allen-like psychological self-obsession comes across as endearing and funny. That's not to say the film's more dramatic moments, such as its beautiful, understated, ending don't work, because they do, but the film's quality is increased by the humorous contentThe film is obviously low-budget and essentially a mockumentary, so don't look for any great moments of technical film-making, but Zahedi is no bore and certainly a solid directo who knows how to pace a film. A lot of people have a problem with Zahedi's behavior towards women, but it appears that by the end of the film he is happy and content in a healthy relationship. Caveh Zahedi's "I Am a Sex Addict" is far from a perfect film, but it's honest, entertaining, unique, well-made, and worth your time.8/10

When I was growing up in NYC, all the girls I knew would have most likely had a word for this guy: a creep. Not attractive in any way, not even in a Woody Allen or R Crumb intellectual/brilliant/funny sort of way, Caveh is repugnant to look at, with his scrawny body, weird face and even weirder ideas about relationships. I found it hard to believe that the women depicted in the movie (and shown in their real-life identities as well) would be attracted to him in the first place. This having been said, the film was interesting.He does attempt to explore areas that have not really been dealt with in this particular way before - how some people (women, in this movie) try to be open-minded with their boyfriend's behavior and confessions about sex but in reality, they can't actually accept it. This has been shown before, of course, in other movies, but it's the way it's depicted here that is quite original. And it rings true: I've learned that in intimate relationships of any kind, it's quite possibly impossible to be thoroughly forth-coming (no pun intended). It was mind-boggling to watch Caveh perversely attempting to be a hundred percent honest - his version of it, anyway - and how it always wound up being not only destructive to every relationship, but, even worse, it came across as being cruel, obtuse and self-indulgent.There are funny parts in the film though. What I thought was the most hilarious was how, whenever he would approach a hooker, he would ask "How much" and when she told him, he would say, "I have to think about it." Then he would ask other hookers what they were charging, as if he were comparison shopping. This struck me as being really humorous. I understood that he was also getting off on merely talking to them, of course, and he was indeed not sure if he was gonna go through with it many times, but it was the comparison-shopping factor that made me laugh. More seriously, it was very revealing to see how his thoughts and feelings on the conscious level versus the unconscious and subconscious levels regarding women were completely opposite. Throughout the film, he keeps talking about transcending negative feelings, like jealousy for instance, but yet he finds that when the tables are turned by one of his female lovers, he is consumed by jealousy and transcendence is nowhere in sight. He throws these words out like the can be simplistically applied, without deep inner work, expecting things from others that he is sadly inequipped to give, inadvertently making him a hypocrite.More along these lines, he states in the film that he respects women, he's a feminist, blah blah blah, but yet his behavior toward them as shown in the course of the proceedings is criminally selfish. At one point, he even says he looked at one of the women he was pursuing for sex, saw her soul, and shockingly realized she was a real person, with real needs and feelings of her own. Welcome to the human race, Caveh.

Obviously not a Hollywood, high-budget film, but if you can get past that it is really interesting. Yes, the Producer/Director/Writer/Star is being very self indulgent. Of course you learn from the film that he has always been that way. But this film is an outstanding a study of a male viewpoint of relationships and sex.He repeatedly says that all he wants is someone he can be totally honest with, and he hears several women tell him they want that honesty. Of course the truth is that we only want our partners to be honest when it matches our own view of reality. When their truth conflicts with our view of reality we either try to argue them out of their truth or force them to deny it. In fact, as much as Caveh wants the freedom of being honest with his partners he never gives them that same freedom.Don't rent this for the sex scenes and don't rent this for a great plot. But if you like psychological studies of relationships, this film is well worth the time and money.