In search of the last laugh in opposition to the mainstream’s same sex joking around, gay filmmaker Quentin Lee moves on from queer revenge in Ethan Mao, about an outcast son taking his homophobic family hostage on Thanksgiving. This time it’s the Knocked Up version of a female sex addict on the prowl, no kidding, with The People I’ve Slept With.
The second movie in the last few weeks along with Inception to mull the multiple aspects of horizontal human interaction, Lee’s flaky Don Jane promiscuous, literally screw-ball comedy hits theaters simultaneously as well with Eat, Pray, Love. Which also makes it seem like women everywhere may be suddenly morphing into commitment phobic female studs.
Karen Anna Cheung is Angela, the combo horny protagonist and webcam voiceover exhibitionist in The People I’ve Slept With, who never tires of serial stranger sex and could care less about sparing the audience any of the too much information sleazy details. A voracious proponent of the sexual version of the all you can eat buffet spread, Angela is at the same time an equal opportunity adventuress who is into sampling gay partners on occasion, both male and female.
But for a woman who seems to qualify for a PhD in every erogenous technique known to mankind, she apparently never heard of safe sex. So when it’s personally a far fetched shocker to find that she’s pregnant and with a dozen or so potential baby daddies, this particular twisted plot twist comes off as even more unbelievable for the audience.
And in no way a gal pal Sex And The City style seductress, the likely incongruous girl misogynist doesn’t have a female friend in sight. Even her conventional housewife sister concerned for her erratic sibling’s well being, is depicted as a repugnant annoyance. And in effect, all her surrounding shoulders to cry on are gay men, above all her perpetually jovial co-worker, Gabriel (Wilson Cruz).
Turning the tables on the tendency to mock homosexuality as a genetic mutation, Lee teases back with an eccentric invention of what gays derogatorily designate as a breeder. And a female control freak whose extreme libido is so off the charts, that she catalogues the performance skills, endurance timing and package measurements of what would under more realistic circumstances be considered their sexual conquest, not hers.
And however subversively contrived the premeditated plot points dissing love, marriage, monogamy and motherhood in no particular order, not to worry. Family values triumph yet again, even if wedging their way in between hot sex, dirty jokes and DNA samples graphically smuggled on the sly from used condoms or sleazy recently departed suspect corpses.
People Pictures
Unrated
1 1/2 [out of 4] stars
