SEX AND DEATH 101

SEX AND DEATH 101 is about the life of one man, a list and 101 women.

Roderick Blank (Simon Baker) is a successful executive and ladies man, who has finally found his “one and only” and is getting married in a little over a week. His life, however, is turned upside down when he receives a strange email that includes the names of everyone with whom he has ever had, and ever will have, sexual relations. The list throws Roderick into an instant moral dilemma and inner turmoil, since it doesn’t end with the name of his fiancé, Fiona, but counts 72 more potential sex partners. His situation goes from bad to worse when he encounters “Death Nell” (Winona Ryder), a mysterious femme fatale who becomes an urban folk hero as she targets and attacks men guilty of sex crimes against women. She lures men into her bed, then drugs them with a “potion” that sends them into a potentially permanent coma.

This plot has a number of holes and never explains who is controlling all the actions that take place in predicting the future. The plot simply revolves around Roderick as he ventures to seduce every woman on the list; his inspiration being that he already knows that he’ll be successful in getting them into bed. In order to go chasing these sexual fantasies, he dumps his fiancé two weeks before their wedding.

The names on the list consist of lesbian porn stars, a man and 20 Christian teenage girls. The introduction of the Christian girls is an especially irreverent and vulgar use of what the filmmakers consider “comedy.” Roderick is in a bicycling accident and is rescued by a school bus full of Christian girls coming from camp. They decide that virginity is a curse and each take a turn having intercourse with the half-conscious Roderick. One of the girls is even shown making the sign of the cross before entering the bus to have sex and lose her virginity. It’s foul, revolting and blasphemous. The list of sickening content also includes lesbian kissing, disgusting sexual dialogue, numerous profanities and obscenities, nudity (male and female), implied homosexual sex, and sex with a convalescent elderly woman. Roderick also makes the comment, when he believes he is trapped by his fate of fornicating all these women, that “no god could help me now.”

Simon Baker does a fine job portraying the role of Roderick and deserves kudos as far as acting is concerned, if you ignore all the smut. Winona Ryder also does a fine job, although her role is more of a cameo than the starring role advertised. And despite the overall depravity of the film, her character turns out to be mostly good. Still, a potentially good film was ruined by the writer/director’s sick sense of what comedy is.