Make Hollywood Horny Again
A week-long celebration of erotic thrillers.
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Youre not too smart, are you?
I like that in a man.
This isnt a pass, its a warning.
But hes too horny, too dumb, to see it for what it is.
The kind that requires you to roll ice cubes down your body while sitting in front of a fan.
The kind with air so thick it makes your hair stand on end and your skin perpetually slick.
Its as if Mother Nature herself is foreshadowing the hothouse dynamics soon to come.
The story situates Matty as a smooth and cunning figure, several miles ahead of Neds venal legal mind.
Pleasure for these women is in short supply, but for Matty, pleasure isnt negotiable.
Ned catches on by virtue of her demeanor and appearance that she isnt from Miranda Beach at all.
Shes moneyed and living in the nearby, upscale Pinehaven.
When she eventually disappears, Ned remains determined to find her.
I like that in a man.
Its exactly why I think Turners performance is so dazzling and rich to study.
But Matty possesses something else: real, palpable, fulfillable lust.
She doesnt just use sex and seduction as a weapon; she actively desires it.
(Though she would remain, primarily, white.
Black women and women of color in general rarely appear as femme fatales in American erotic thrillers.
Importantly, their femme fatales arent meant to reflect womens real-life struggles, nor do they.
As writer Michael Boyce Gillespie has noted, film is a poor mirror.
Turner doesnt play Matty as simple.
Shes in love and lust, but neither emotion quite supersedes her financial motives.
Shes in a constant state of desiring.
But Turners performance has no single, remarkable scene.
For the first and only time, Matty is nervous.
But whats curious is she doesnt look ecstatic or pleased.
Theres no wicked smile on her face.
Instead her gaze is inscrutable, like the woman herself.
Is she feeling guilty over her misdeeds?
Is she pondering the life she can lead going forward?
Is she thinking of the husband she had killed?
Is she considering the man she doomed to prison?
In the hands of Kathleen Turner, anything could be true.
