Sex with Love (2003)

Too much of everything

To me, this movie is perfection.

Memorable, crazy movie

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

I thought that this was a decent sex comedy. I thought that Chile was a fairly conservative society, and though I obviously cannot make judgments based on a movie, it really seemed little different from the U. S. The photography of the unnamed Chilean city was fine. The plot was interesting, although it seemed awfully casual about the semi-incestuous encounter. It is hard to gauge an actor's performance when it is in a language not known to me, where I have to get the dialog from subtitles. But no one came across as bad, and I had to take note of Sigrid Alegria, who is stunning, playing the part of the young schoolteacher incongruously in love with the much older, toad-like parent of one of her students.

Even though the aesthetics of film-making in Sexo con Amor remain vaguely familiar and borrowed -- there's the nice, clean 3-point lighting set ups for each of the scenes with a focus that's just a little soft to give the romantic feel of Barry Lyndon, shot-reverse-shot is a dominant structure of the scenes, the melodrama (although invented in cinema by D.W. Griffith, it's not really a style of Hollywood anymore, it's becoming a Spanish expressionism almost, with soap operas and Almodovar inevitably influencing rising directors more than anything else), and the adherence to story -- the cultural references are undoubtedly different and original than are those seen in the leading American films.For one, the always-taboo subject of nudity is handled very crudely (but honestly), with almost every other scene including people getting into in-depth discussions while naked or half-naked. It defies the exploitive nature of American film nudity not only because of its overwhelming amount, but the way in which it's used. At one point Luisa's (Sigrid Alegría) breast falls out of her lingerie, as it probably would in real life, while she turns in bed, and not only has it survived the cut, but was probably intentional during the making.In another scene where uncle and niece get it on together, incest is made seen as if it's almost unnatural to live without. Though to say more about that relationship, it's probably only used in reference to sex (and niece was probably put in there to be a plot device, the sole possibility for the lone man to get access to a woman). A moral compass for that particular relationship is not shown at all. In fact, it's mostly about an older man who copes with cheating on his wife, while there is no hint he's hesitant at doing it with someone like his niece.Although I wrote above that it adheres to a strict storyline, the conclusion of the plot is not like in the American movies as well, it's open and suggests lack of character growth rather than concluding with a specific point of original intention. And it works, a good question is better than a good answer in this case. Sexo con Amor is a different type of animal, a film rich in Chilean culture and must be viewed without bias from Hollywood-like structures.

It seems that for a movie to be called a masterwork it must show either obscure localisms or close shots of women's underwear. Believe or not, people acclaim this Chilean feature for its sexual content, not for whatever superficial insights on life it might have. This is an empty, banal, vulgar and poorly executed film. I can't believe the Chilean gov. backed it up. It looks so cheap! From the bad casting, too old or young mothers, to amateurish acting, to a truly awful script this is a movie you should avoid to all costs. Since when a movie must depend on sexual content to carry whatever point it intends to make? Said that, despite the excessive sexual graphism of this movie, excessive for a supposedly non soft core porn flick, I don't have any issue with it; I can accept and try to understand why the director would want to fill with cheap scenes his work. However, I think he failed miserable with this supposed sexual comedy. In the end, he only achieved to impress some of his countrymen, people hungry for panties shots in a domestic film or just because the movie apparently depicts a Chilean (and Latinamerican by extension) reality.So I can't recommend this futile exercise on mediocrity to anybody. It is really a trashy film. Instead, watch Playboy on cable or a real movie. In fact, I was generous when I gave this garbage a 3. It deserves nothing!

Sexo Con Amor was much anticipated and became an immediate box office hit in its origin country Chile. Being an explicit sex-comedy in an uptight country this was understandable. But that's about everything positive that can be said about it. The storyline is foreseeable, the characters schematic and the humour childish. Kind of an uncensored 90-minutes Chilean soap comedy.Go see any Argentinian movie instead.