THE WOMEN'S CLUB

US, 1987, 89 minutes, Colour.
Michael Pare, Maud Adams.
Directed by Sandra Weintraub.

The Women's Club is a sex satire from the team of Fred and Sandra Weintraub. (On seeing the film, one wonders if it is in any way autobiographical.)

Michael Pare is a frustrated screenwriter who is taken up by a wealthy woman (Maud Adams) and invited to be a gigolo available in a luxurious house for her rich friends who want sexual relationships discreetly. He tapes the encounters as part of a screenplay. He interacts with his friend Carlos, a would-be actor on Miami Vice, and clashes with his girlfriend Cali. His parents turn up at an inopportune moment. A newspaper is doing an investigation on the health and fitness club run by Maud Adams. It is the ingredients of farce rather than serious drama. This is the kind of film that has its cake and eats it as well - offering a lot of visualising of women's sex fantasies and then ultimately making it all seem good on the surface in terms of the hero - but not of Maud Adams who starts her process again.

1.The popularity of this kind of sex comedy and satire in the '80s? Moral stances and values? Reflecting affluent society? Men and women and relationships, sex objects?

2.American affluent society, houses and apartments, fitness clubs? The background of the women? The musical score, songs? Collages of sex fantasies being acted out?

3.The title and its tone, implications?

4.The portrait of Patrick - write, frustrated, his relationship with Cali? Friendship with Carlos? His jobs, waiting? The accident with the woman and the tape? Angie seeing him, seeking him out, the proposition? Their sexual encounter? The basis of his decision? Money, sexuality? Vanity? The house, setting it up with Carlos? The relationships with the women, their fantasies - and his later nightmare? The money, his writing? Meeting Cali again, deceiving her? The screenplay - and Angie's attack, tearing it up? The investigation? The thug tying him up to get the tapes back? The visit of his mother and father? At the women's club, the tapes destroyed - and the happy ending for him with Cali? Absolved of everything that had happened?

5.Angie, the rich woman, her club, her sexual patronage? Money, her friends? Arranging the encounters? Her anger about the tapes, getting the tapes back? The meeting with the women? Her starting again? Her values and stances?

6.Carlos, wanting to be an actor, friend with Patrick? Participating in his set-up?

7.Cali, relationship with Patrick, supporting him, betrayed? Forgiving him?

8.The sketch with the parents, their visit, the sexual encounter with the father?

9.The reporter, the interviews, the sense of a scandal? The tapes?

10.The women, their marriages? Moral values? The film as a comment on the American way of life?