"Sex, lies and videotape was the start of an extraordinary career, one that reflected an era. Soderbergh came up, went mainstream, went tricksy, dropped out."
The movie takes place in Baton Rouge, La., and it tells the story of four people in their early 30s whose sex lives are seriously confused. One is a lawyer named John (Peter Gallagher), who is married to Ann (Andie MacDowell) but no longer sleeps with her. Early in the film, we hear her telling her psychiatrist that this is no big problem; sex is really overrated, she thinks, compared to larger issues such as how the Earth is running out of places to dispose of its garbage. Her husband does not, however, think sex is overrated and is conducting a passionate affair with his wife’s sister, Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo), who has always resented the goody-goody Ann.
An old friend turns up in town. His name is Graham (James Spader), and he was John’s college roommate. Nobody seems quite clear what he has been doing in the years since college, but he’s one of those types you don’t ask questions about things like that, because you have the feeling you don’t want to know the answers. He’s dangerous, not in a physical way, but through his insinuating intelligence, which seems to see through people.
Unable to satisfy himself in the usual ways, he videotapes the sexual fantasies of women, and then watches them. This is a form of sexual assault; he has power not over their bodies but over their minds, over their secrets.
The story of “sex, lies, and videotape” is by now part of movie folklore: how writer-director Steven Soderbergh, at 29, wrote the screenplay in eight days during a trip to Los Angeles, how the film was made for $1.8 million, how it won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, as well as the best actor prize for Spader. I am not sure it is as good as the Cannes jury apparently found it; it has more intelligence than heart, and is more clever than enlightening. But it is never boring, and there are moments when it reminds us of how sexy the movies used to be, back in the days when speech was an erogenous zone.
Roger Ebert famously noted that the film reminds us "how sexy the movies used to be, back in the days when speech was an erogenous zone." There is almost no explicit nudity in the film; instead, the tension is built entirely through dialogue, close-ups, and the psychological vulnerability of the interviews.
In 1989, the camcorder was a relatively new consumer tool. Soderbergh used it to explore voyeurism and the idea of "performance." Today, critics note the film was prophetic: in an age of social media and smartphones, everyone is now constantly performing for their own "cameras."
Cultural and Industry Impact
sex, lies, and videotape is arguably the most important "indie" film of the last 40 years for several reasons:
The Sundance Milestone: It won the inaugural Audience Award at the 1989 Sundance Film Festival. This turned Sundance from a low-key regional event into a mandatory destination for Hollywood executives looking for the "next big thing."
The Rise of Miramax: Distributed by Harvey and Bob Weinstein’s Miramax, the film’s aggressive, "sexy" marketing proved that a $1.2 million dialogue-driven drama could earn over $25 million at the US box office.
Cannes History: At age 26, Soderbergh became the youngest solo director to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
The 90s Boom: Its success paved the way for directors like Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater, and Paul Thomas Anderson, proving there was a massive commercial market for auteur-driven, low-budget cinema.
In 2006, the film was added to the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." It remains the blueprint for the "modern indie"—minimalist, dialogue-heavy, and deeply personal.
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