SEE Magazine
Issue #393: June 14, 2001
Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved

On Screen REVIEW by Mari Sasano Center of the World starring Molly Parker opens Friday, June 15 at the Garneau Theatre **** (out of five) The Center of the World, already infamous for its racy subject matter, was released unrated in the United States to avoid the NC-17 kiss of death. A notorious sex movie, they say. It’s directed by Wayne Wang. Could this be Wayne Wang of Joy Luck Club fame? Nice Wayne Wang? The very same. However, its reputation far exceeds what the film actually dishes out. Rumours of an explicit, sex-soaked look at the seedy underbelly of human desire are dismissed once you get past the initial shock of the premise. Richard (Peter Sarsgaard) is a young pre-bust Internet prospector in L.A. who meets pretty young Florence (Molly Parker), drummer by day, stripper by night. Lonely and dissatisfied by his wealth and success, he hires Florence to accompany him to Las Vegas for a weekend. Reluctantly she agrees, on the conditions that there’s no kissing on the mouth, and no penetration, and no talking about feelings. Fools. Blue-tinted flashbacks fill in the backstory of Richard’s isolation and depression – girlfriend gone for two years, with only video games and sorority showercams to keep him company, business partners freaking out all around him as his stocks continue to rise. It’s the kind of ennui that would drive anyone to find some way to connect with another warm body on a more basic level. It’s the 21st century paradox: communications are more and more instantaneous, disparate communities are brought together in spite of physical distance. But there’s nothing quite like having another heartbeat in the same room. For Richard, computers put you at the centre of the world. For Florence, it’s the almighty cunt. Going back to first principles, as it were: it is the well from which we all spring, where many seek to return. And there’s the problem: even though their arrangement works theoretically under those principles, again there’s those dumb feelings. Dammit. Even though this kind of man-technology/woman-body dialectic is well-traveled territory, the fact that Richard DOES operate under this assumption is what ruins him. Most women learn pretty quick the power of their sexuality, at the same time knowing that it reduces them to playing roles that are limiting and demeaning. Twice in this film women are punished for not being "proper" women, for not responding with enough pleasure; for being emotionally ambivalent. But who can blame them? When the men they are with hold so much power over them, the least that they can protect is their own feelings. Therefore: Lesson #1: never buy a lap dance from a pretty girl you’re gonna fall in love with. Lesson #2: If it’s just a sex thing, make it clear. If it’s not just a sex thing, make it clear. But when you wait in your trashy Vegas hotel room for your hired, uh, hand each evening, bring out the chips and pop, ’cause it’s just a show. Apparently this was shot on digital video, which is the quick and dirty way to make a movie – it is now the preferred medium for pornography, for example. How apropos. The handheld faux-realism works with the subject matter, looking alternately luscious and ugly as video can do. Molly Parker, no stranger to weird sex roles (necrophilia in Kissed, masochistic prostitution in Suspicious River) is not entirely the stripper type, but she manages to bring her usual sense of peculiar tragic waifishness to the role. Her co-star Peter Sarsgaard, apart from one (unintentionally?) hilarious monologue about his hot, hard, cock, is dweeby and sad and weirdly sexy as Richard. Everything revolves around The Center of the World. In the end, we are left to wonder what exactly IS the relationship between love and sex. The answer? Ambiguous.

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