In 1989 writer director Steven Soderbergh released Sex Lies and Videotape. At the time, it was a watershed in film making, low budget, arthouse and featuring actors of the calibre of James Spader and Andie McDowell. The 26 year old first time feature director Soderbergh wrote the script in eight days and shot the film in five weeks for just 1.2 million dollars.

Visually the film is sparse and the plot very simple. John (Peter Gallager)and his wife Ann (Andie McDowell), have sucessful careers but their sexlife is dead due to Ann’s lack of interest. As a result John finds an outlet for his desires through an affair with Ann’s sister (Laura San Giacomo). When the enigmatic drifter Graham (James Spader) calls into town after many years away, he convinces his old college pal John to let him stay. But Graham has an unusual hobby- he achieves gratification by videoing women discussing their sex lives.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1989 and was an instant hit. Soderbergh’s screenplay was immediately nominated for an Oscar, and over the following year, Sex Lies and Videotape won numerous awards at festivals around the world.

While the film received rave reviews from critics, I found it slow, awkward and dull. In fact the screenplay had such little appeal, the most interesting part of the script was the title. After that it was all downhill. While the cast did well in their roles, the pacing and structure was a complete dissapointment. Because of this, even though the characterisations were accurate, it was hard to build empathy with any of the characters. As a result, any suspense the film managed to build gave way to boredom and considering the movie’s premise was sex, it failed to deliver any level of erotic tension.

I know for a fact that I’m not alone in my opinion of the film. In fact in the twenty years since its release I’m yet to meet anyone who agrees with the critics. So it seems something of a miracle that the film went on to do as well as it did.

But whatever your opinion of the film itself, it is its success that it should be remembered for. If Star Wars changed the very nature of film-making in the 70’s then Sex Lies and Videotape was equally as important in that it gave birth to the era of independent film making.

Soderbergh showed that you didn’t need a big budget or loads of action to sell a film. In doing so he created a whole new approach to making and marketing a film that completely by-passed the studio monopoly. The premise was simple. Make your film the best you can and then market it through a reputable film festival. In those days this now common strategy was unheard of. It was real genius.