I definitely felt like a victim of the old bait and switch the first time I sat down to watch Atom Egoyan’s Exotica. Thanks to some clever box art by Miramax, I was certain that I was about to enjoy an erotic thriller in the same vein of Basic Instinct, Jade, or even Sliver. None of these films particularly thrilled me but here was a chance to at least see something new and I was quite sure that Elias Koteas was the same dude who played Casey Jones in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
So despite there being a heaping helping of nudity from the start thanks to the titular titled club, which as advertised wasn’t a strip club but something more, there wasn’t much thrill to go around. Sure, there was some illegal egg smuggling and even a gun came into play alongside some fisticuffs, but Exotica wasn’t the film I thought it was going to be.
Thank goodness for small favors.
Instead of some run of the mill movie I got treated to my first Egoyan film, and if there’s anything I’ve learned about him over the years, it’s that he knows how to guide a film through twists and turns while leaving only the smallest of breadcrumb trails. But when everything comes together, as it does here, it packs an emotional gut punch that leaves you tumbling.
Exotica tells the tale of a handful of people. There’s the aforementioned Elias Koteas playing Eric, the master of ceremonies at Exotica who is undoubtedly too tied into the life of his former girlfriend Christina (Mia Kirshner) who happens to dance at the club. One of her favorite patrons is Francis (Bruce Greenwood) a tax man who is investigating unusual finances in the pet shop owned by Thomas (Don McKeller), who just happens to smuggle exotic bird eggs into the country.
Oh yes, that title has some double meaning.
Bruce Greenwood has had a rather lengthy career, but when he appears in an Egoyan film he always seems to bring something special. While each character has some secret or lie they are hiding behind, his portrayal of Francis is the most complicated and heartbreaking. After one night in the club where he touches Christina his world begins to crumble and sets in motion the connections that will bring the film to it’s riveting conclusion.
It wasn’t until Egoyan’s follow up film, The Sweet Hereafter, that he began to gain some more mainstream American recognition thanks to an Oscar nomination, but his full set of skills are on full display in this sadly hard to find film. He has such precise control of his craft that we as the audience only learn crucial information at the exact moment we need to, and if you’re like myself, much of where you think the film will be going will either be incorrect or even darker than the film, which I feel is Egoyan’s intent. He’s a director that isn’t afraid to let the viewer begin to fill in the blanks before pulling the rug away. His use of music and score is wonderful, as evidenced by the use of Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows in key moments.
Exotica will leave you plenty to think about, which is more than I can say for most erotic thrillers.
“Things go bad eventually when we try to heal in the wrong way.”
