Movie Review: 'X' Camp Erotic Thriller Subverts Expectations

X is a movie that is difficult to describe. It’s not a pornographic movie but it is a very sexual movie. It’s not a thriller but it’s not a straight drama either. It’s a very modern movie with a strong eye toward the pansexuality of modern, big city youth culture. It also has elements of social media satire, and a wildly strange conclusion that has stuck with me in the several days since I watched the movie.

At first, the ending of X confused me. The more I sit with the ending however, the more I find the chaotic coda to be fitting of a movie that is as experimental as I feel X really is. The writing and directing duo Scott J Ramsey and Hannah Katherine Jost have many aspects to the strange story they want to tell and there is an inherent kinkiness to what they find interesting in the story they are telling and the offbeat way they choose to tell it.

The opening scenes of X would lead you to believe that Stella (Eliza Boivin) is our main character in this story. We watch as Stella is arriving at a party that she’s perhaps not actually invited to. The party is clearly modelled on the secret society from Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. Everyone is vetted, they have a password to get in and everyone must wear a mask. Stella is our introduction to The Foundation, a secret society of perverts who meet under the guise of a charity.

The actual lead character is Christian (Hope Raymond). Christian is a mysterious woman who chairs the foundation, which may or may not be under the auspices of her former pop star mother Lynda (Valerie Fachman), who is now in mental decline. The Foundation may have a charity aspect but the whole thing is really cover for weekly sex parties that are held after the squares have dropped off their checks and gone.

For the rest, a night of kinky thrills awaits and everyone watches Christian to see if she might deign to be with them that night. Christian however, never partakes of the delights among her guests. Secretly, Christian has a fetish that can’t be satisfied with even the biggest orgy or kinky twist on convention. The IMDB description gives away what Christian is hiding but I will not, part of the mysterious and kinky thrill of X is being a little surprised by what Christian gets up in private.

X has plot complications aplenty as Christian’s partner in crime, Danny (Brian Smick), has invited Stella specifically to get under Christian’s skin, and perhaps out of her clothes. Stella, Danny and Christian all went to High School together and Danny is blackmailing Stella to come to the party by promising not to tell her boyfriend, Jackson (Zachary Cowan), about her job as a camgirl, Jackson believes that Stella teaches night classes over webcam.

Jackson sounds like a dupe but he may be the most dangerous and duplicitous person in the movie. Christian had a crush on Jackson in High School but not being popular, she was always outside looking in, in more ways than one. She was initially opposed to Stella coming to the party but when she knows Stella is dating Jackson, she sees the chance to get what she always wanted from her high school unrequited crush.

What Christian wants however, isn’t as clear as you think. Christian’s sexuality is, fair to say, fluid. Christian’s most obvious trait is a fear of intimacy in general, likely linked to her hidden fetish. Her closest relationship is Danny, another pansexual character who appears to indulge in all aspects of the sexual rainbow. He’s also somehow, the most innocent of all the characters in X, an earnest and loyal friend who happens to love having wild sex with as many partners as possible.

Not all of X works as a traditional narrative drama, but that’s not necessarily what the makers of X are going for. In their notes on the movie, they describe the film as an erotic thriller crossed with queer camp. I love that description and if the movie had more of the knowing sense of humor that the word camp implies, I might like it more than I do. That said, I love the spirit of X and the lead performance by Hope Raymond who invests Christian with a sharp, sardonic wit.

X is not for all audiences, you definitely have to be on the film’s very unique wavelength to enjoy it. I happen to admire this unique wavelength and thus I liked X, to a point. I liked the anarchy of the ending and the choices to subvert our perspective on the notion of a main character. Stella is a bit of a bland character, even with her secret cam girl gig. Usually, we’d be stuck with her as an innocent in a world of knaves. Switching gears to focus on Christian makes it appear as if the camera just found Christian more interesting and stayed with her instead of the main character from some other, lesser movie.

I admire little things like that. It could be a form of incompetence or ignorance on the part of the writing and directing team, not knowing how strange it is to switch leads so quickly into a story being told. But, I prefer my version where the story was simply allowed to wander off with Christian and the far more interesting and less told story. Christian is typically the villain character of a movie like this, the one who the main character must overcome to realize their goal. But, X is not typical in many ways.

A quick shout out to the marketing team who created some incredible images for the posters and stills. And, I haven't even mentioned the Soundtrack for X which is it's own entity entirely. The whole soundtrack is original music by the director Scott J Ramsey and collaborators, Kevin DeNicolo and Lien Do. Collectively, they became the music group The Major Arcana and produced a series of music videos that take the marketing images of the movie and make them into surreal art pieces touching on the themes of the movie. I love the ambition and artistry on display in the making of X perhaps even more than the movie.

X is available for streaming rental on February 9th 2021.