S#x Acts – Review

15th December 2013

In his debut film, Israeli filmmaker, Jonathan Gurfinkel gives us a provocative, unsettling, far from titillating and at times claustrophobic take on sex in the 21st century teenage world.

The protagonist of the film is Gili moves school and immediately decides that she wants to be part of the popular kids group. In her mind that means getting with one of the popular boys. However, when Tomer shows little interest in her, his rich and morally bankrupt friend Omri steps in. Does he manipulate Gili into performing sexual favours for him and his friends? Would she have done so if she’d known it would be recorded? Who is using who and to what end? Is she a willing victim who makes dubious choices with little regard for the outcome? The final twist at the end is certainly shocking but not unexpected.

The title of the film is misleading as the ‘#’ stands for an ‘i’ rather than the ‘e’ most people would assume. The film consists of six acts and with each one we are plunged further into a deeply disturbing world where the teenagers rule in a pack like mentality and the parents are merely side players. It does raise all sort of moral issues such as; the boundaries of consent, the disregard for central character’s feelings and the teenagers’ trivialization of sex and its use as currency to gain social status. For the boys in this film all come from wealthy backgrounds whereas Gili is poor.

The plot is not without gaping holes such as: really we need to know more about Gili’s life aside from the sexual encounters and partying in order to care more about her.

This is not a feel good film, actually it is reminiscent of Kidulthood in many ways, and is best watched with someone else so that you can have an intelligent debate on the teenagers of today. If that’s not your thing, then give this film a miss.

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