alianiara I first came across this movie while looking up for incestuous movies in a boring day, but it was nothing like a low taste erotica. The whole concept of immorality attached to incest because you can never underestimate the influence of a parent, and the damage it can cause by the abuse of it.We are quite familiar in fact, about the negligent father type as in the movie. What we don't usually see is the poison of love as the mother in the movie, that suffocates with all tenderness.We see a promising MIT medical student stuck in the house with a blue mother, who infiltrates every aspects of his life and denies him access to the outside world, in the name of love. The boy could not say no, because the one he loves has that power over him, the attraction of the motherly love allures him daily to go backwards and crawl back into the womb. It is common and applicable to all of us, the growing sexual tension is but a external presentation. Also, for the mother, the fear of a separate and independent identity growing inside her child will constantly and subconsciously make her try to stop the child from his development, which without the intervention of rationality, could be dangerous.I don't usually see this kind of parental pressure addressed in movie and this is a good one.

MisterWhiplash Ray just wants to go to medical school. More than that, he has a great opportunity at hand: he's got a big chance with a paper he's writing to be selected as one of the ten interns for the Surgeon General in DC. But there's a hitch, an annoying and bib and personal one: his mother, a depressive, has broken her leg quite badly and is in bed and needs help to do basic things: go to the bathroom, take a shower, have meals, etc. So Ray's father, a traveling salesman (and a louse, which we see in snippets though sadly the rest of the family never quite knows about if suspects), tells Ray he has to do this, no one else can help, and it will be about a month. So much for the internship, right? Could he make it? But what about those showers? And lotioning the legs and the under-the-cast area? And those little touches of the forearm. Mom, you're trying to seduce me(?) Um... are you?Spanking the Monkey, a technically and writerly masterstroke (no pun intended) of a debut from director David O. Russell, is simply a sick twisted f*** of a movie made by a man who, at the time at least, was probably a sick twisted f*** as well. You wanna know what this is? Here's a pitch: Young Charles Manson (who Davies later played) does his Mom. There. Go see it. It delivers on that but it's so much more a psychological mind-bender, but told without too much flash and panache - this isn't Three Kings, for example, it's more low-key and low-budget, which adds to the disturbing elements being directed just like a regular indie film from the 90's. And it does try to add a little levity - or more of a typical quirky/awkward sub-plot where Ray may or may not get into a sexual relationship with a high-schooler (no, believe me, this is the more normal part of the movie, awkward kissing and juxtapositions with the dog as well).But be warned, sorta: this is billed as a 'comedy', and it is in the sense that I chuckled a few times. But the character interactions, Davies performance (and here, more than anything else I've seen him outside maybe Rescue Dawn) looks like he's about to explode or cry or both at any moment, and just how Russell takes a very direct approach to the psychological issues at hand, not sugar-coating how much he and his mother need help and we feel for both of them because it's so honest even in its absurdity, make it essential viewing for those looking for subversive American cinema from the 1990's, or ever really. It would be in Amos Vogel's book if it had been made in the 60's or 70's, you mark my words! That it was made for (relatively) so little and looks pretty polished is a further credit (this won the Audience Award at Sundance 94 - the year Clerks was there, to give perspective).

selenedm999 Having "come of age" so to speak in the mid-1990s, I pine for the 1993-1998 period, for music, films, and (lack of) fashion. I know those days aren't coming back, but when I feel most "grown up," and the most like a loser, Spanking the Monkey is a film I'll return to watch again and again. Because no matter how unsuccessful I am, or what's expected of me that I'm failing, I could never be as big a loser as the lead character! Jeremy Davies plays Raymond Aibelli, a promising first-year university student pressured into giving up a prestigious internship to care for his mother during the summer. Mom is Alberta Watson, a woman who is very sexy but incredibly needy, and not just because she's got a broken leg. Raymond's dad is away on a business trip, and Raymond rattles around the house trying to maintain a sense of himself while being crushed under the pressure of his forceful family members. We laugh at him as he fumbles his way through brushing the dog's teeth, his awkward attempts at a relationship with a young neighbour, and we start to feel the tension stretch itself out as he takes care of his mother.The director's commentary notes the "forced intimacy" of caring for an invalid, and I found that to be an apt description, as Raymond carries his mother to the washroom, helps her in and out of the shower, and smooths moisturizer on her legs. This turns into an awkward foreplay (eeyuw!), but the subject matter, while certainly a dark taboo and fantasy, replaces shock value with something much more subtle and complex. It's not a tale of incest so much as a complicated look at the way family interacts, and how the things an individual wants can get overlooked when having to look out for everyone else.The most notable thing about the movie is the acting on the part of the leads. Jeremy Davies, still relatively inexperienced at the time of the movie, plays the angst and frustration of the situation with both sensitivity and a slow-burning tension. Alberta Watson, who could have been hammy or shrewish in the part, instead captures a full range of emotions from embarrassment to manipulation to a passive-aggressive anger directed at her son, for being the reason she had to sacrifice her own dreams.As weird as your family is, be glad of them, and as badly off as you think you are, someone else has it worse.

kenjha Uneven but engrossing black comedy about a medical student caring for his bed-ridden mother during the summer break and having their relationship take unexpected turns. Davies is very good as the frustrated and confused son and Watson is alluring as his sexually frustrated mother. The film works best when focusing on Ray's relationship with his parents; the parts dealing with Ray's friends are less interesting. The scenes where Ray's father tries to explain to him what is expected of him with regard to taking care of his mother and the family dog are funny, as are the ones with the dog interrupting Ray while he tries to engage in the title activity. The big moment between mother and son is handled discreetly. This is a fine early effort by director Russell.