Spanking the Monkey

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thiago s @Thiagostone 03/14/2025 Filme fraco, o roteiro é fraco, as cenas são fracas e piora o filme, o elenco é fraco, e ninguém ajuda a melhorar o filme, com tudo isso, eu não recomendo esse filme. See more 10/30/2021 "Spanking the Monkey," a dark, far deeper Oedipal slant on "The Graduate", offers up a mostly slow, awkward, briefly kinky piece about a college-age kid striking out against his narcissistic parents. You'd never guess this from the nurk-nurk Seth Rogen-sort of title. Funny it is not. Still, it feels fresh and will hover with you a while, like it or not. See more 08/02/2021 Dark but funny. Don't watch with you mom lol. See more 07/31/2021 Funny and weird. Love the Morphine song at the end. See more 03/27/2020 This was a very good movie. We can learn from it. This is why we should not do incest sex. Relationship bewteen us will be ruined. You'll feel guilty and Your mom will not behave like your mom. See more 05/14/2019 This is one of the finest debut features from a modern director that I have ever seen. David O. Russell would go on to make Silver Linings Playbook (2012) and American Hustle (2013) but here he makes a smaller film that displays his abilities at capturing natural and funny dialogue. I have always had a guilty pleasure for comedies that concern incest like The Hotel New Hampshire (1984) and Murmur of the Heart (1971) but this is probably the most low key film I have seen about the subject. The performances of the actors are all great and they are written as colorful but oddly realistic with various entertaining details dropped in. I found myself loving everything about it, including the score, while watching it and I would consider it to be an overlooked gem. Ray Aibelli, Jeremy Davies, has to forego a prestigious summer medical internship in Washington D.C to take care of his bored housewife mother Susan, Alberta Watson, who has broken her leg. Susan has been neglected by her husband Tom, Benjamin Hendrickson, who spends his money on prostitutes and cannot afford to pay for Ray's second year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Incestuous attraction develops between mother and son as Ray's attempts to begin a sexual relationship with local teenager Toni Peck, Carla Gallo, fail. Ray comes of age despite being stuck in a very difficult situation and ultimately decides to simply run away. The chemistry between Davies and Watson was wonderful as they are able to completely sell their taboo attraction and also appear as a normal mother and son. Russell gifts them with brilliant dialogue but when they discuss Ray's "boner boat" and throw cheese at the television their connection is weird but magnetic. In terms of their characters we get the usual admission that Tom didn't want a child, very much like The Graduate (1967), and we understand that Susan is considered attractive by both Ray's friends and Toni's father. The clichà (C)s are dealt with humorously and have an extra bite to them which makes their use feel fresh and exciting instead of overused. Even though it was clear that these two were not meant to be together I found myself for rooting for them as those around them treat them poorly. The supporting cast of characters were also fantastically written and played with Gallo as Toni Peck and the unknown to me Judette Jones as the nosy Aunt Helen being particular highlights. Gallo was 19 when she played the role of an awkward teenager but she pulls it off so well as she removes her retainer during a kiss with him and aggressively pursues a disaffected young man. She is uncomfortable with her burgeoning sexuality but has the confidence of a young woman in confronting her boyfriend's mother. Jones is giving a Geraldine Chaplin in Nashville (1975) style performance when she is so excitingly annoying and frustrating with her inane twittering about inconsequential parts of her life. Her nagging of Susan and Ray and the fact that she drops in her issues as a driver caused me to titter and the fact that her presence brings them closer together helps. Russell is good at showing the build up of sexual tension between mother and son. We see massages, showers and Ray catching his barely clothed mother in his arms. The sight of him rubbing his body raw as he attempts to push back against the thoughts of beginning a sexual relationship with his mother it is painful but also makes the moment at which he consummates his relationship with her more dramatic. Russell never focuses for two long on their actual sexual activity as their intercourse is implied but we do get scenes of him taking out his frustration on her. I would urge you to watch this film because it is short, enjoyable and heralds the career of one of the better mainstream filmmakers of the 2010s. Watson, Davies, Jones and Gallo are all terrific in their roles and Russell's screenplay gives them great things to do. It's not gratuitous in how it deals with it's subject matter and it's certainly better than some of Russell's later attempts at dark comedies. See more Read all reviews

Spanking the Monkey

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