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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0014381139020
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Image Entertainment
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Image Entertainment
Region Code: 1
Release Date: December 06, 2005
Running Time: 100 minutes
Sales Rank: 30162
Studio: Image Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date: July 15, 1994
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
Jeremy Davies, so weaselly as the interpreter in Saving Private Ryan, got his break in this 1994 dark comedy debut by writer-director David O. Russell. Davies plays a college student whose entire future seems to implode when his traveling-salesman father forces him to stay home for the summer and take care of his mother, who is recovering from a broken leg. In anguish, he gives up a prestigious summer internship and moves back to the house where he grew up. There, he distracts himself with masturbation and lots of long walks, and even a half-hearted courtship of a much younger girl. But his proximity to his mother provides surprising preoccupations and impulses, which give this film the best of its squirmy humor. Russell, a sharp-eyed observer of surreptitious human behavior, extracts wonderfully drawn performances from Davies and Alberta Watson as his mother in this unexpected delight. --Marshall Fine
Description:
A critically acclaimed, outrageously offbeat look at growing up! Looking forward to a prestigious summer internship in Washington, D.C., pre-med college student Raymond (Saving Private Ryan's Jeremy Davies) has his dreams put on hold when he's forced to stay at home caring for his invalid mother (Alberta Watson, The Sweet Hereafter, TV's 24). Constantly harassed by his domineering, travelling salesman father, Raymond struggles to deal with his mother's bed-ridden anxieties and his first, stumbling attempts to romance the naive girl next door.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - And I thought this type of thing only happened in rural Mississippi.
I decided to write this review in the form of a horribly constructed poem. Here goes.
Raymond is forced to stay at home for the summer
Wanting an internship instead, he considers this a bummer
His mother's hurt, and needs his help, and drives young Raymond crazy
He's forced to take care of her, or else she calls him lazy
Then one day while putting ointment on her leg
Raymond feels a bizarre feeling rising within his southern hedge
The rest, my friends, will leave you shocked, when at last you see
That Raymond's got the hots for mom, and yes, his mother biologically
(take that Walt Whitman)
This film is completely absurd and I cannot recommend it. That doesn't mean I haven't watched it sixteen times in the last year alone on IFC, however.
Rating:  - Not for all tastes, but a good film nonetheless
After being forced to give up a prestigious internship in order to "babysit" his mother, who has a broken leg, a teenager finds himself falling in love with his mother.
Much like "Happiness", a black comedy about a pedophile, "Spanking the Monkey" is the sort of film that will not appeal to everyone. This film is billed as a black comedy, and I suppose it is, in retrospect, but I didn't feel like I was watching a comedy when I was watching it. What this film is, is a truly amazing character study of a suburban family that contains some laughs but also realizes that a lot of what it's dealing with just shouldn't be laughed at. Writer/director David O. Russell ("Three Kings", "I Heart Huckabees") takes a subject that most people wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole, that is, incest, and explains how it could happen and the consequences if it does happen. The result is a film that feels completely believable and that is also completely compelling.
This is an intelligent film that doesn't provide the audience with easy answers. In fact, a lot of questions that this film raises are left unanswered at the end, like, for example, who did initiate the relationship in the first place, Raymond or his mother? It is also a very restrained film, and all the better for it. Don't expect to see any sex scenes between a 19 year old and a 40 year old. Everything is left to the audience's imagination.
Not being a big David O. Russell fan (I didn't like "Flirting With Disaster" ... Read More
Rating: - Brave work!
This movie is the first time I have seen mother-son incest portrayed so accurately.
Different from fathers who abuse their children sexually, mother's do so in more covert ways making the child feel they are the perpetrator. The mother in this movie was covert in that she would quietly initiate her son to behave in sexual ways and when he would it would look like it was what "he" wanted when, in truth, it was what "she" wanted.
No son ever wants to have sex with his mother. And even if he has the fantasy the mother should stop it and never engage it. These type of mothers are very sick and unfortunately I see the results of what they to in the therapy room amongst my male clients.
The wreckless behavior he begins to engage in is so common among the men sexually abused by their mothers.
Anyone watching this film should remember that even though it was the son who appears to be initiating the sexual contact with his mother, it is "her" that is grooming him to do so. She is the perpetrator--not the son! Ever!
Rating: - One unexpected reaction by one character and I'd have liked it. Really.
Spanking the Monkey (David O. Russell, 1994)
Spanking the Monkey is a movie that wants to be deep. Russell, it seems, wants to offer some sort of incisive criticism on suburbia wrapped in a weird coming-of-age tale; the problem is that neither branch off this distended stump produces enough of substance to be taken seriously.
Our hero, Ray (Rescue Dawn's Jeremy Davies), is a medical student poised to begin a summer internship. Unfortunately, his plans are interrupted when his mother Susan (Alberta Watson, probably best-known these days for a stint on 24) breaks her leg, and Ray is conscripted into caretaking while his insufferable father (Benjamin Hendrickson of As the World Turns) is away on business. Ray comes home, hooks up with his old drug pals (one of whom is rising star Zak Orth in his first screen appearance), and finds himself smitten with Toni (Superbad's Carla Peck), a high school student from the neighborhood. All of which seems as if it wants to go somewhere. That's all well and good; the problem is that each thread's destination is entirely independent of the destination of the others. That works fine in real life, but this is the movies. There has to be some sort of structure, some defining factor that makes it all come together in some way. Ray isn't a strong enough character to be the linchpin for all this, but that is the role Russell thrusts upon him. Any one of these plots might have made a good movie; twisting two together would have worked well enough. ... Read More
Rating: - A Forgotten Gem
This is a bittersweet coming-of-age movie that's more sweet than bitter. Some of the scenes are downright hilarious, thanks to some wonderful, nuanced and well-timed performances from the actors. Just the kind of comedy for viewers fed up with the formulaic stuff churned out by Hollywood's play-safe executives. Made more than a decade ago, this is truly one of those forgotten gems that deserves to be unearthed and enjoyed. A solid 4 stars.
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