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THE CENTER OF THE WORLD Send This Review to a Friend
I can't recall a more sexually explicit film aimed at the mass market than Wayne Wang's "The Center of the World." We've come a long way since "The Last Tango in Paris" seemed bold. But this is not a film that trades on sensationalism. It's a serious, dramatic and ultimately sad film about the inability to commit and the entanglement of sex with emotion although the intention is otherwise. A sensuality pervades the film even when nothing sexual is happening. This is a film with sex on the brain.
The screenplay credited to Ellen Benjamin Wong (a pseudonym for the efforts of director Wang, Miranda July, Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt, with Auster and Hustvedt having provided general story ideas early in the project) introduces us to Richard Longman, played by Peter Sarsgaard, and Florence, portrayed by Molly Parker. He's a self-confident, newly rich computer engineer minus the human connection he is beginning to feel that he needs. She plays the drums in a rock band, but is also earns needed money as a stripper and lap dancer in a club with the indelicate name Pandora's Box. First they meet at a luncheonette, and then Richard gets a taste of what she does at the club and her teasing movements fire his imagination and his libido.
Florence initially refuses his invitation for a weekend in Las Vegas. He offers to pay her $10,000. She says she's not a whore, yet she finally agrees to go, but he must accept her strict rules. She wants her own room, will not let him penetrate her and he can't even kiss her on the mouth. Also, she'll only enter his room from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. He may not be getting his $10,000 worth, but what we see is certainly worth the price of admission.
Parker isn't beautiful in a cliched way, but when we get close-ups, her face becomes quite lovely. She has a trim figure and enough freckles to tantalize anyone with a taste for such decorative endowment. Wang focuses cannily on expressions that reveal her emotions, sometimes expressing pleasure at the sex play and the power she holds over somewhat stupefied Richard, who has run into more than he knows how to handle, and sometimes recoiling in alarm at the feelings that stir dangerously within her. She insists on keeping her emotional distance no matter what, while Richard is soon wanting more. The situation gets even more erotically complicated when a troubled girlfriend of hers, Jerri, nicely played by Carla Gugino, enters the picture.
Parker and Sarsgaard are to be commended, not only for their totally convincing acting, but for their daring in doing the film. The point made is that with human beings, the more the sexual involvement, the more impossible it is to stifle feelings and keep them separate. Wang has directed a fascinating, mature and vivid movie, not for everyone, but a film for those who want to venture into the world of a close, erotic relationship between two participants trying to navigate between basic needs and emotional obstacles. An Artisan Entertainment release.
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