Poison Ivy

Delivery Time: 7 to 15 Working Days Format: DVD

Ivy the sexy streetwise new girl at a posh private school will do anything to fit in. With one slick seduction ivy sets off a chain reaction that makes poison ivy one of the most provocative and erotic thrillers ever filmed. Special features: theatrical trailer cast and crew biographies and more. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 05/10/2005 Starring: Drew Barrymore Tom Skerritt Run time: 180 minutes
Sight unseen, it's tempting to dismiss Poison Ivy as a teen variation on your standard trashy erotic thriller, a genre born with such promise in Body Heat that has since been in steady devolution. But while Ivy is no Heat, it's better than virtually any of those movies that star someone named Shannon. Crisp directing is supported by a script that takes a smart look at dysfunctional family dynamics, but most of all, it's the performances. Much has been made of Drew Barrymore's perfect casting as the title character, but she also does a sneaky and subtle job of straddling the fence: is Ivy a desperate, lonely young woman, an evil barracuda, or both? Tom Skerritt matches her step for step, playing the fallen husband as both hopelessly vain boob and genuinely lost soul. Cheryl Ladd delivers a sharp, minimalist performance as his Beverly Hills trophy wife dying of emphysema--becoming the still-life center of everyone else's life. And Sara Gilbert does a fine job in a role that gives her all the heavy lifting, playing tortured straight man to this pathetic and compelling tree full of coconuts. This DVD features both R-rated and unrated versions. The latter shows a bit more skin, although it's still fairly tame compared to the average skin flick. It also leaves Ivy a bit more ambiguous, and is thus a bit more fun. --Geof Miller