Mystery DVD Club No 27: Amy's O

Luke Savage

Our mystery DVD club returns, and we've been buying Sundance DVDs! Here's Amy's O - but have we struck gold with it?

Published on Dec 17, 2009

Who's Amy? And what the hell is an 'O'? These were just two questions that struck me upon receiving my inaugural Mystery DVD Club title. As if by magic, the film heard me.

"My name is Amy Mandell," says Julie Davis' titular protagonist in the first scene. "I'm 29 years old. I'm Jewish."

Fair enough, I thought. My name's Luke Savage. I'm 30 years old. I'm not Jewish. But still, I think we could have something here.

Amy, though, has other things on her mind. She's got to do a book signing for her self-help tome about how women don't need love, called Why Love Doesn't Work. And it's tough work. It involves going on TV shows and talking about willies and stuff. She's got to go out for dinner with Barry from Friends (not to be confused with Barry from Eastenders - let's save that for the sequel).

Then there's a womanising radio chat show host, Matthew Star, she takes a liking to. He takes a liking to her. Not knowing what to do, she seeks sexual advice from that most reliable of sources: her priest, who owns a laserdisc copy of The Thorn Birds, so knows all about unrequited love. And redundant home entertainment technology.

But here's the thing. Amy has sworn off men. She hasn't had sex for four years, and her book extols the virtue of being a single woman. Could the woman who's told women all across America how they don't need love suddenly, gasp, need it herself?

Written, directed and edited by Julie Davis (I hadn't heard of her either), Amy's O is, in movie critique shorthand, Sex And The City crossed with Woody Allen. With a bit of Lovejoy mixed in, if Davis' direct-to-camera conversations are anything to go by. While it shares some of the McShanian drama's charm and likeability, it also does the SATC thing by talking frankly about sex and relationships with impressive candour. Like when Nick Chinlund's radio host Starr receives an unexpected visit from Davis's besotted Amy; "If I'd known you were coming over I wouldn't have just jacked off," he tells her. Typical.

And it's never boring; Davis is a fairly accomplished filmmaker with limited means at her disposal. The opening shot was so well staged it even had me on the rewind button to figure out how she did it (it's a really well disguised use of green screen). Some shots must have missed quality control, looking like they were shot on Betamax then blown up via a Commodre c64. For the most part, however, it's a competently made film from 2001.

But it's very slight, and more often than not tries too hard to be kooky - it has chapter titles inserted throughout, like 'Chapter 1: Sex is the logical outgrowth of love' or 'Chapter 4: Sex is the end of romance'.

So sex is a good thing? Or not so much? I couldn't work that one out. But then I'm not sure I understood what made Amy's self-help book such a massive seller in the first place. It sounds about as emotionally satisfying as a Flake advert. Although I'm probably not the target demographic for a film that uses the song I'm About To Lose Control to depict a woman's anticipation of a sexual encounter; to me that's always going to be a song about the joys of a Crunchie bar.

Amy is clearly modelled after SATC's Carrie Bradshaw in her frank discussions about sex and relationships, but more often than not doesn't have her wit or insight. How much you enjoy Amy's O will depend on how much you enjoy lines like: "I never have sex. I'm a sexorexic." And "I have a unique talent for being uniquely un-talented at love." Or your tolerance for a film that has its lead character trying to make eating an olive look erotic. Note: it's not very erotic.

And for all its refreshingly open and non-Hollywoodised treatment of sex and masturbation that sets it apart from bland rom-coms, it still succumbs to the tired Hollywood cliché of a couple breaking up at the end of the second act, before a reconciliation as the credits roll.

It's a pleasant enough watch, but probably no more than an episode of SATC that you've already seen a couple of times before. And the mystery of the 'O'? It stands for orgasm, apparently. Which was probably a bit too racy for Blockbuster.