Spanking the Monkey (1994)

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

I first came across this movie while looking up for incestuous movies in a boring day, but it was nothing like a low taste erotica. The whole concept of immorality attached to incest because you can never underestimate the influence of a parent, and the damage it can cause by the abuse of it.We are quite familiar in fact, about the negligent father type as in the movie. What we don't usually see is the poison of love as the mother in the movie, that suffocates with all tenderness.We see a promising MIT medical student stuck in the house with a blue mother, who infiltrates every aspects of his life and denies him access to the outside world, in the name of love. The boy could not say no, because the one he loves has that power over him, the attraction of the motherly love allures him daily to go backwards and crawl back into the womb. It is common and applicable to all of us, the growing sexual tension is but a external presentation. Also, for the mother, the fear of a separate and independent identity growing inside her child will constantly and subconsciously make her try to stop the child from his development, which without the intervention of rationality, could be dangerous.I don't usually see this kind of parental pressure addressed in movie and this is a good one.

Having "come of age" so to speak in the mid-1990s, I pine for the 1993-1998 period, for music, films, and (lack of) fashion. I know those days aren't coming back, but when I feel most "grown up," and the most like a loser, Spanking the Monkey is a film I'll return to watch again and again. Because no matter how unsuccessful I am, or what's expected of me that I'm failing, I could never be as big a loser as the lead character! Jeremy Davies plays Raymond Aibelli, a promising first-year university student pressured into giving up a prestigious internship to care for his mother during the summer. Mom is Alberta Watson, a woman who is very sexy but incredibly needy, and not just because she's got a broken leg. Raymond's dad is away on a business trip, and Raymond rattles around the house trying to maintain a sense of himself while being crushed under the pressure of his forceful family members. We laugh at him as he fumbles his way through brushing the dog's teeth, his awkward attempts at a relationship with a young neighbour, and we start to feel the tension stretch itself out as he takes care of his mother.The director's commentary notes the "forced intimacy" of caring for an invalid, and I found that to be an apt description, as Raymond carries his mother to the washroom, helps her in and out of the shower, and smooths moisturizer on her legs. This turns into an awkward foreplay (eeyuw!), but the subject matter, while certainly a dark taboo and fantasy, replaces shock value with something much more subtle and complex. It's not a tale of incest so much as a complicated look at the way family interacts, and how the things an individual wants can get overlooked when having to look out for everyone else.The most notable thing about the movie is the acting on the part of the leads. Jeremy Davies, still relatively inexperienced at the time of the movie, plays the angst and frustration of the situation with both sensitivity and a slow-burning tension. Alberta Watson, who could have been hammy or shrewish in the part, instead captures a full range of emotions from embarrassment to manipulation to a passive-aggressive anger directed at her son, for being the reason she had to sacrifice her own dreams.As weird as your family is, be glad of them, and as badly off as you think you are, someone else has it worse.

The only truly notable thing to say about Spanking the Monkey is that it is one of two films that I think I've ever seen that have actually turned me on. This is kudos to not only the actress involved in the particular scene but also the director, David O. Russell, who happens to have directed both films. In what I think is his best film, I Heart Huckabees, there is a scene where Isabelle Huppert massages Jason Schwartzman's crotch with her foot. This aroused me. In Spanking the Monkey, reluctant Jeremy Davies rubs lotion on bed-ridden Alberta Watson's upper thighs. In order to give her a full once-over, he has to reach his fingertips just beyond the limits of her very short summer shorts. Good job, Mr. Russell. And thank you, Ms. Watson. I am hardly ever aroused in any way by any sexual situation of any kind in movies or TV, even some of the hottest, steamiest, most well-crafted scenes ever filmed, but David O. Russell seems to share my taste.The context of this scene is not what turns me on. The context of this scene is Oedipal, as is the film's entire premise. The premise is quite funny in a way that taps into our frustration, self-centeredness, and animal hormone roller coasters, though it's sometimes too subtle for its own good, and its serious points come without the grace they need, often taking us by surprise. The acting is surprisingly good for a low-budget independent film. I was surprised that Jeremy Davies could actually move me at all with a performance, because he normally lies flat on the screen, with the presence of one of the props. In Spanking the Monkey, ironically early in his career, he is very good.Overall, Spanking the Monkey is funny, interesting, and kind of hot, even if it's almost shameful by the standards of the writer/director's later work. It's not a particularly memorable film, but it has its highlights.

Considering the plethora of reviews here, both good and bad, there isn't much I can say that hasn't already been said. I will add that the first half works "reasonably" well, allowing viewers to understand perhaps how such a thing as an incestuous encounter could possibly happen. But then the film derails, and derails big time. The boy blames his mother completely for what they did, and the film seems to side with him despite the fact that it had previously shown us that he was just as guilty as she in the liaison. The film gets unspeakably ugly from there. The subject of consensual incest has been addressed by film only a few times over the years, always with unsatisfactory results---perhaps this is reflective of society's uneasiness with the subject. Consensual incest is about the only "sexual more" that is never discussed (even by psychologists), even though it likely occurs in real life with more frequency than we would like to believe.