A fine film that will be misunderstood

riprock

The Center of the World is a film that will separate the careful, thoughtful viewers of cinema from the tourists.  Understandably, an unrated movie about a stripper and her client heading to Las Vegas for a three-day long, $10,000.00 lap dance is bound to attract a certain crowd.  And most of them will be disappointed.  The audience will probably  split three ways:  Those that are going to be disappointed because it isn't `Pretty Woman', those that will be disappointed that it isn't `sexier', and those careful viewers that will realize the film is neither Hollywood romance nor full-on pornography.

The Center of the World is about human contact as commerce.  Both characters supply it.  Richard through the internet company he works for, and Florence at Pandora's Box, the strip club where she sells carefully controlled human contact for `$60.00 for two songs.'   Ironically, both characters are cut off from what most people would consider normal contact by the fact that they `sell' a specialized form of it.  Florence by the rules of her job and Richard by the multiple computers screens he cannot seem to get away from.

The characters are somewhat comfortable in their respective situations until they leave the controlled environments with which they have set up for themselves and with which they are familiar.  Even in one of the least real places on earth, Las Vegas, real human contact sneaks in and screws things up.  As they start to get to know each other and deal with sometimes mundane and sometimes intense situations, Richard mistakes it for something deeper and Florence sees it for what it is but retreats back into her role as the untouchable stripper. Neither character seems comfortable with normal contact.  Florence certainly doesn't want it from someone who pays to see her naked body and Richard seems ill equipped to handle even a normal relationship, let alone one that starts with $10,000.00 cash changing hands.

Viewers looking for a fairytale will be just as disappointed as those looking for hardcore porn.  Yes, there is explicit nudity.  But it's cold, calculated nudity.  Nudity stripped of it's erotic power.   Yes, there is a pretty stripper and rich guy willing to pay for love.   But he isn't Richard Gere and she isn't Julia Roberts and this isn't Hollywood.

score /10

riprock 1 June 2001

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0713462/