Wild Side

As a point of clarification, I am talking about the director’s cut of Wild Side. Apparently, the shorter theatrical release cut one or both of the main lesbian scenes. I wish I could say I’m surprised. Wild Side is every inch a sexy crime thriller. Sex is the very reason for its being. But homosexuality? That’s too far. The sexual violence, general violence and misogyny though? I betcha that all made the theatrical cut.

Christopher Walken receives first billing in Wild Side. He’s an internationally renowned money launderer named Bruno. Thankfully, he’s not quite the main character. Being a crime man, Bruno obviously has sexual appetites that call for a high class prostitute. Enter Alex (Anne Heche), a banker who moonlights as a sex worker. Bruno takes a liking to Alex, as does his right hand man, Tony (Steven Bauer). But Tony’s interest isn’t just sexual. He’s undercover and wants Alex to help him take Bruno down. During Alex’s banking day job, she meets Bruno’s girlfriend, Virginia (Joan Chen). Given that they’re the only women in the film, obviously Alex and Virginia do some lesbianism.

Okay, right off the top, we’ve gotta talk about Christopher Walken. He is a strong cinematic flavour. Wild Side doesn’t use him effectively. Scenes with Walken tend to veer into the comedic. His character feels almost like a cartoon of a crime guy. The hair certainly doesn’t help matters. It takes the whole thing into Tommy Wiseau territory. Honestly, Walken’s unintentionally comedic performance made the movie more enjoyable for me. But I can’t say it’s good. It’s impossible to take this character seriously. Christopher Walken has a decades-long career of great performances. He’s won an Oscar. Sadly, his role in Wild Side more exemplifies why he and his vocal pattern has become a bit of a meme.

Wild Side‘s motivation is first and foremost to be sexy. So as far as a crime thriller goes, it’s pretty dumb. People have a tendency to just admit their motives, backstory and allegiances without prompting. After all, we’ve gotta move the plot along somehow. But this basically murders any intrigue. We know Tony’s a cop pretty quickly. We also know Alex and Virginia love each other. The fact that they’re strong allies in the third act doesn’t come as any sort of surprise. But maybe it did in 1995. Maybe Wild Side provides clever meta commentary on how women and lesbian relationships are undervalued and not taken into serious consideration. Or, maybe that theme is wholly accidental.

As a “sexy” movie, I didn’t find it to be such. There’s like, a lot of misogyny. I’m usually pretty desensitized to the word “bitch.” But Wild Side used it so frequently that it started to sting. The male leads, Bruno and Tony don’t think very highly of women. And the sex they have with women doesn’t seem pleasurable to both parties. Tony full-on rapes Alex at one point. The film’s intended audience is clearly not women. Maybe for men this is some sort of fantasy? That you can be sleazy and wear bad wigs and still have sex with beautiful women. But this male fantasy very much comes at the expense of any sort of female pleasure both for the women in the story and the potential of female viewers.

Blessed with low expectations, the lesbian element of Wild Side surprised me. Alex and Virginia’s scenes actually depict female pleasure and offer the potential for female fantasy. Their relationship is admittedly, absurdly rushed. They meet at most twice before there’s a confession of love. But this is one of those movies where they’re like, the only people to be nice to one another. Easy to mistake that for love. Their first sex scene is sensual. The women compliment each other the whole time and there’s multiple consent check-ins. After their love scene, they continue to just be nice to each other and care for one another. Most surprising is how the film and their relationship ends. They successfully run away together! They’ve got money and each other and a plan to make a life together. And you know what? I think they might actually make it as a couple.

So, the lesbian bits of Wild Side exceeded my expectations. But that’s mostly because everything else in Wild Side wasn’t great. This crime thriller isn’t particularly smart and I didn’t find it super sexy either. Christopher Walken’s performance is fun, but also completely distracting. The lesbianism simply doesn’t make up enough screen time in the film for me to have a particularly high opinion of it. Even in the director’s cut, the word “bitch” has more representation in Wild Side than lesbianism does.

Overall rating: 5.3/10

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