The Opposite of Sex

In Don Roos's gleefully acerbic first feature, the nail-hard teen-ager Dedee Truitt (Christina Ricci, left) quits boring Louisiana and goes north to camp out for a while with her nice homosexual half-brother, Bill (Martin Donovan), whom she hasn't seen in years. Bill, a sensitive high school teacher who tries to lead a fairly orderly life, never knows what hits him.

In short order, little Dedee seduces his boyfriend, Matt (Ivan Sergei), announces herself pregnant and runs off to California with Matt and most of Bill's life savings. Remaining remarkably philosophical under the circumstances, Bill is left with a scandal that costs him his job. Accompanied by Lucia (Lisa Kudrow), the constantly complaining and very funny sister of an earlier lover of his, Bill chases ''the human tabloid,'' as Lucia calls Dedee, to the West Coast in, Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times, ''a busily plotted, nicely unpredictable sex comedy with a sarcastic edge.''

1998. Columbia Tri-Star. $99.36. 105 minutes. Closed captioned. R. Release date: Tuesday.

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