Rio Sex Comedy is a movie that gets two-thirds of its title right. The movie is set in Rio and lots of people are having sex, but there were very few laughs in this supposed comedy. In fact, there isn't much of a movie or story or point to Rio Sex Comedy.
Rio Sex Comedy has three main “plots” (and I use that term loosely) that sort of weave together by the end of the film. In the first story, Irene (Irene Jacob) is a documentary filmmaker interviewing house-workers and showing their working conditions. Her husband Robert (Jerome Kircher) invites his cameraman brother Antoine (Jean-Marc Roulot) to come to Rio and help Irene with her documentary. The documentary storyline gets dropped, though, when Irene and Antoine start shacking up. The second story is about William (Bill Pullman), an American ambassador, running away from his American handlers and getting mixed up with a local scam artist/tour guide Fish (Fisher Stevens). The last story is Charlotte (Charlotte Rampling), a plastic surgeon who has left her husband and successful career as a plastic surgeon to high-priced clientele to go to Rio and perform plastic surgery for house-workers and other poorer patients. Shortly after arriving there, though, she discovers that she prefers working on rich housewives.
After the movie was over, I was curious how the film was received by people who have lived in Rio versus people who had not visited or lived in Rio, and there is a clear divide in opinion. People who lived in Rio enjoyed the movie and got the humor of it while people like me who are outside of that culture were completely lost. My problem is that so many filmmakers such as Woody Allen have made movies that are specific to a city or a region but are still accessible to audiences outside of that culture. Nicole Holofcener's Please Give is a perfect example. I don't think the filmmakers behind Rio Sex Comedy made any effort to bring in the audience and help them understand what was going on. There is a lot of exposition about house-workers and the slums vs. the ultra-rich of Rio, but nothing connects together.
Despite having a fairly decent cast and edgy content (lots of full-frontal nudity), I was utterly bored by this movie. The funniest part of the whole movie was during a scene transition when the soundtrack suddenly switched to Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up. Yes, Rio Sex Comedy actually Rick-rolled me, and it was the most interesting thing to happen in its entire 124 minute running time.
Last observation: I have a theory that Rio Sex Comedy might have been a comedy at one point, but a production assistant went through the script and did a search/replace taking out all the movie's jokes and replacing them with penises. If anyone worked on the movie and can confirm or deny this theory, please leave a comment below.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Special features include 13 deleted scenes.
"Rio Sex Comedy" is on sale December 15, 2011 and is rated R. Comedy, Foreign, Indie. Written and directed by Jonathan Nossiter. Starring Bill Pullman, Charlotte Rampling, Fisher Stevens, Irene Jacob, Jean Marc Roulot, Jerome Kircher.
