Only fitfully funny sex comedy set in a Baltimore neighborhood where anyone who gets a concussion becomes a sex addict. John ("Hairspray") Waters' latest film features Tracey Ullman, Johnny Knoxville, Selma Blair and Chris Isaak who gamely go through the paces. But whatever Waters' satiric intent, the humor inherent in sex addicts squaring off against conservative anti-sex "neuters" is fairly childish and quickly wears thin, substituting puerile humor for genuine wit. Almost nonstop rough, crude and profane language, full frontal nudity, sexual imagery, obscene gestures, scatological humor, casual portrayal and descriptions of deviant sexual practices, a glorification of freewheeling sex and some sacrilegious imagery. O -- morally offensive. (NC-17) 2004
Full Review
Sex addicts run rampant in Harford Road, a blue-collar neighborhood of Baltimore, in the latest film from John Waters ("Hairspray," "Pink Flamingos"). Though he's got a name cast and his intent is to offer a humorous look at sexual anarchy, the film's content is predictably smutty, however satiric in intent, and the sophomoric humor quickly wears thin in "A Dirty Shame" (Fine Line).
Repressed housewife Sylvia (Tracey Ullman) and her square husband, Vaughn (Chris Isaak), keep their go-go dancer daughter, Caprice (Selma Blair), with her grotesquely enlarged breasts, locked in a room over their garage. A traffic collision soon gives Sylvia a head injury which transforms her from a puritanical prude to a wanton sex maniac. (Waters apparently got the inspiration for this conceit from an article that indicated a small minority of those with head injuries develop "a carnal lust they can't control.")
Truck driver Ray-Ray Perkins (Johnny Knoxville), a sexual minister, recognizes that the metamorphosed Sylvia is primed to be one of his sex disciples, and Sylvia is only too happy to give vent to her newfound urges. Her transformation is evident to all when she performs an obscene dance at a nursing home.
As it happens, Sylvia's mother, Big Ethel (Suzanne Shepherd), is already leading a campaign to crack down on the sexual promiscuity she sees around her, and sets out to form a coalition of the neighborhood's decent folk she proudly terms "neuters," including Marge the Neuter (Mink Stole).
It develops that anyone who sustains a head injury becomes a raving sex addict, and Sylvia is soon enmeshed in a world of rampant sexuality, surrounded by more fetishes than she -- or the viewer! -- could ever imagine. Sylvia's rampant promiscuity comes to a temporary halt when another knock on the head restores her to normalcy, and so goes the rest of the film, as characters are repeatedly hit on the head, turning their libidos on and off like faucets.
In Waters' view of how people irrationally fear sex, sympathies are definitely with the free-spirited sex fiends, and it's the repressive community that needs liberating.
The film is shot in cheerfully bright primary colors, and there is an infectiously tuneful rockabilly soundtrack of 1950s-style songs (though, as might be expected, some of them are outrageously vulgar). A cheesy ballad called "Sylvia" -- over the credits over a well-manicured Baltimore street -- makes you think you're in for an homage to the Douglas Sirk films of that era, rather like Todd Haynes' "Far From Heaven."
Eventually, though, we see that even the shrubbery in the neighborhood's front yards is of an erotic nature, and we are in a very different world indeed. Waters has further peppered the film with stock footage from vintage nudist camp films, sexploitation films and the like to reinforce his theme.
The film attempts a tone of cheerful licentiousness, but most of the gags are fairly cringe-inducing. "A Dirty Shame" may set a record for the bad-language meter with more familiar and offbeat sexual terms and descriptions than have ever been gathered in a single film.
The cast gamely goes through its questionable paces, and even David Hasselhoff has an unfortunate cameo near the end that may result in your never thinking quite the same about him again.
Waters is on record as questioning, "Why is sex bad if God gave it to us? Why can't you celebrate it? If you believe in spirituality, can't there be sex that's so good that it causes spiritual happiness and miracles? In a way, that's what this movie is trying to do -- make sex spiritually exciting and wonderfully lurid."
Let's just say he's right about the lurid bit!
Toward the end of the film, there's a denigrating of Christian symbols and rituals which Catholic viewers will find particularly offensive, as if everything that preceded it wasn't bad enough.
Waters has set out to spoof some of those oh-so earnest films of the 50's and 60's that under the guise of "serious drama" were, in themselves, thinly veiled sexploitation pictures. Fair enough. But what's really the dirty shame here is that -- even if it were possible to put aside all the distinctly blue content (not!) -- this movie is, at best, only fitfully amusing, and, for most of its 86-minute running time, less than that.
Because of almost nonstop rough, crude and profane language, full frontal nudity, sexual imagery, obscene gestures, scatological humor, casual portrayal and descriptions of deviant sexual practices, a glorification of freewheeling sex and some sacrilegious imagery, the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is NC-17 -- no one 17 and under admitted.
Movies have been evaluated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting according to artistic
merit and moral suitability. The reviews include the USCCB rating,
the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief
synopsis of the movie.
The classifications are as follows:
- A-I -- general patronage;
- A-II -- adults and adolescents;
- A-III -- adults;
- A-IV**
- L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
- O -- morally offensive.
** Discontinued classification. All archived movies that were originally in the A-IV category are now classified as L.