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Review

Naked Lunch director David Cronenberg's adaptation of J.G. Ballard's 1973 novel involving auto-crash-erotic fetishists rumbles on the fumes of its outlaw reputation. This dispassionate parable on urban alienation is set in a netherworld where technology, obsession and sex meet. While those involved in the making of the film might have been seeking to make a lofty work of art, the result and its reputation lies more with the (hetero, homo, lesbian, self, group) sexual coupling and settings of these carnal encounters than with any real insight into what all this frenzied fucking really means. James Spader is a man who develops some kinky sexual desires after he is involved in a deadly collision. His favorite partner is Holly Hunter, but then his wife (Debra Unger), a straight medical researcher (Elias Koteas), accidents and his paraplegic wife (Rosanna Arquette) become involved as well. The many sex scenes are primarily straight, although some boy-boy and girl-girl action is thrown in as well. Spader and Koteas take their friendship/rivalry a bit further than most in the one gay scene (which is frustratingly muted with a cursory feel about it) and there is a much more animated lesbian scene between Arquette and Hunter.