- YEAR: 1996
- DIRECTOR: David Cronenberg
- KEY ACTORS: James Spader, Holly Hunter, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arquette, Elias Koteas
- CERTIFICATE: 18
- IMDB SCORE: 6.4
- ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 63%
SEX SCORE: 2.5/5
❌ Not only does Crash not pass the Bechdel test, it fails it spectacularly. While there are named women in the film at no point in the entire film do any of them talk to each other. There’s not a huge amount of dialogue in Crash, so when I rewatched it with the Bechdel test in mind, I was kind of imagining there might at least be a passing conversation about Ballard between his wife and Doctor Helen that I’d forgotten, but no; not a dicky bird.
❓ But it is rewatchable? I’ve now seen Crash three times; once in 1997 when it (finally) came out in the UK, once when it was re-released on 4K in 2020, and once for this review. I think it’s an astonishing, bewildering film and I can see myself rewatching it again in future. However, it is very strong stuff, and while I can imagine watching it multiple times, there are many people out there who might not be able to stomach an entire first viewing. That’s entirely understandable – it’s creepy, the characters are on the surface unsympathetic and often repellent, and it’s all-round just very fucking weird. However, if you are a weirdo who likes weird things it may be entirely up your alley.
✔️ I did want to fuck the cast! Okay, have you seen the cast of Crash? Firstly, James Spader. If you are at all into pervy men in real life then you are in all likelihood into James Spader: I don’t make the rules. However, those of us perverts who also fancy women are extremely well- catered to by this film, which features Holly Hunter with a sleek brown bob glacially smoking cigarettes, Deborah Kara Unger bending over a railing to show off her bare arse, stockings and suspenders and, famously, Rosanna Arquette in leg braces and black leather. I am not even into women smoking or wearing leg braces except for the duration of this film! But for those 100 minutes I absolutely am. And actually, even Elias Koteas performs the role of Vaughan – easily the creepiest character in the movie – with a degree of ‘strange, perverse sensuality’ (Cronenberg’s own words) that I’m… kinda into. I’m not proud of it!
❌ But it did not inspire fantasies. Nooooo. Or… not on this viewing.
✔️ Yes, it is sex positive, almost to a fault. If we take as our definition of sex positivity as being anything that ‘affirm(s) the choices others make regarding sex, even if those choices are different from the ones we would make (as long as those choices are consensual)’ Although that said, some of the sex in Crash is a bit dodgy consent- wise: there’s one scene of open public fucking without regard for whether others on the roads have consented to seeing, and another where Vaughan and the Ballards are wandering around the scene of a multi- car pileup taking photos, posing next to injured bodies and generally being grossly intrusive. The scene is as disturbing as it sounds but the film and its director do not see fit to moralise and trust the audience to make their own decisions about that.
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