The Center of the World
Director: Wayne Wang
Year Released: 2001
Rating: 1.5
Computer guy Peter Sarsgaard - looking a lot like Dave Eggers - pays emotionally unstable stripper Molly Parker - looking a lot like Tilda Swinton - to accompany him to Las Vegas for a week of fun; one of her rules is "no penetration," which he tries to break for the next ninety minutes. The link-up between three centers of the world - vaginas, computers and money - into the playground for at least two of them - Las Vegas (with plenty of ironic shots of the New York, New York casino) - makes sense, but the screenplay is too weak to develop its one-dimensional characters any further; it's far too busy trying to be sensational and erotic (petting in close-up, bleeding, sodomy, the unnecessary inclusion of Alisha Klass, the how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? shot and so on).
