The Movie
In the 10th season premiere of Friends, Phoebe is forced to break some bad news to her fiancé Mike's girlfriend, who doesn't know she's being dumped. The woman's reaction ("What's wrong with me?!") prompts some tough love from Ms. Buffay: "Damn it, woman! Pull yourself together! Have some pride, for the love of God!" I couldn't stop thinking about that advice as I watched Getting Off, a 1998 television movie (also known as Remembering Sex) from writer/director Julie Lynch.

It's taken a decade for it to get a DVD release, and I'm guessing the rising wattage of Amy Ryan (I love Tilda Swinton, but Ryan should have won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar this year for Gone Baby Gone) helped it get the green light. Set in New York in 1992, the film focuses on three female friends who are forced to confront their sexual history when another friend contracts AIDS.

At the center of the story is Josie (Christine Harnos), an artist drowning in destructive behavior. When she isn't drinking, she's bouncing between unsafe sexual escapades (by her own admission, "I'm kind of a mess right now"). She wants to get back with bad ex-boyfriend Matt (Bill Sage), a verbally abusive man who just wants aggressive sex. Josie's behavior reaches ridiculous extremes as she searches for love and acceptance from him and other men, breaking into tears every chance she gets and uttering a litany of thoughts that will make you cringe: "Why didn't you call me?!" "Why are you shutting the door?!" "Did you not mean what you said?!" "You don't love me, do you?!" "You said you'd always be here for me!" Damn it, woman! Pull yourself together!

Meanwhile, best friend Jennifer (Brooke Smith of Grey's Anatomy; she was also in Series 7: The Contenders with Tom Gilroy, who has a small role here) tries to come to grips with the fading health of Chris (Garret Dillahunt), who she's always held a torch for. After making a list of her sexual partners, she sees a pattern: "15 of them are gay...most of them didn't want to fuck me. It's like, if they're straight, I don't want them near me, but if they're gay I'll force myself on them. It's so fucked up." Matt's sister Elaine (Ryan, in a smaller role) gives off a good-girl vibe, but she may also hold a secret or two from her past.

Josie's downward spiral causes her to neglect her friends, and we soon realize that an event from her past--a rape by a group of men--still haunts her, making it impossible for her to see the good in men, including kind Michael (David Marshall Grant). The film uses frequent water imagery as Josie imagines herself drowning. The film heads toward two crucial events--a party where a few revelations are revealed, and the three friends getting their HIV test results. One of the problems is that there isn't much depth to Josie--all we see and know is a disaster, making it hard to invest much interest in her future.

Getting Off (an awful, inappropriate title, just as bad and lazily conceived as Remembering Sex) ultimately feels like an Afterschool Special with more severe language (and beasts). It's an ad for safe sex that tries to scare you into submission, like those car crash videos from your high school driver education class. There's a pandering, preachy feel to a lot of the dialogue, which often feels directed at the viewer, not between the characters.

It's sad to think that a film made in 1998 takes such a mid-'80s outlook with it's characters, even if people today still hold such naive views ("He didn't actually come inside me, so there is a chance that his bodily fluid didn't actually invade my system," notes Josie...who even talks like that?!). A conversation between Jennifer and Elaine feels equally odd:

"I'll just find out."
"Find out what?"
"If I'm infected."
"You think you could be infected?!"
"Elaine...Chris Goodman has the AIDS virus. I slept with Chris Goodman. So yes, there is a chance I could be infected."
"Didn't you use a condom?!"
"I'll just get tested...what is the matter with you?!"
"Nothing...I just would rather not know if I was gonna die."

Even an HIV counselor comes across as insensitive when Josie can't remember how many sexual partners she's had ("You don't know?! Are you serious?!"). There's a slight sense of irresponsibility to it all, given that the film is made like a public service announcement: from the sad view of the characters knowledge on the disease to the women's view of men to the film's subtle suggestions that AIDS is primarily a gay disease (agree all you want, it's still a dangerous assumption). I'm not saying it's unbelievable that people would think this way in 1992, but the lack of anything beyond such shallow thinking doesn't help the film.

The self-centered behavior and decisions that a lot of these characters make will have you dropping your jaw. They make it real hard to root for them. Josie's behavior is so extreme, it becomes silly. At one point she confronts Michael, unable to remember their night together: "Michael told me we had sex last week...his dick was inside me, and I didn't even know it." Josie later drunkenly knocks on Matt's door in the middle of the night for sex--leading to post-coital blues when she wakes up alone on the rooftop, her hands dramatically covering her privates. Damn it, woman! Pull yourself together!

I was frequently reminded of an episode of The Simpsons, where Barney submits his Lost Weekend-inspired tearjerker Puke-ahontas into the Springfield Film Festival: "Don't cry for me. I'm already dead..."

I don't doubt that people and attitudes like this still exist today, and I know the filmmakers' intentions come from a good place. But Getting Off just becomes a little too maudlin and heavy-handed, too obvious with its agenda. It's rife with lines that end up being laugh-inducing, not thought-provoking. It's enjoyable, but not in the way it strives to be.

The DVD

Video:
The film comes in a non-anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer, which shows grain and can be frequently dark. Overall, it's passable.

Audio:
Equally okay is the 2.0 stereo track, which is strong enough for understanding all the dialogue--the only real goal this film's audio needs to accomplish.

Extras:
The only real extra here is an audio commentary with writer/director/producer Julie Lynch. She's a likeable host, although a lot of the track deals with character and plot points that are pretty obvious. She talks abut her inspiration for the film--her daily newspaper reads that reported the deaths of so many men from AIDS. She started writing it in 1992: "The truth is in the early '90s, none of us thought it was something that we would be susceptible to, especially as a woman...you just assume that's not something that happens to heterosexual women, but in reality it is." She also jokes about the fashion sense displayed in the film (combat boots?! "That is actually how we dressed back then!"), and has kind words for the entire cast. Lynch spends a lot of time talking about Josie, "a tough character for most people to swallow." Lynch adds that the most important thing for her to show in the movie was the underwater scenes: "It was so crucial...that was such a metaphor."

Also included are short text bios on Lynch and three other filmmakers, and six of the actors; a photo gallery from the film; and two trailers for other releases.

Final Thoughts:
The story of three women grappling with their sexual history and the fear of AIDS, this 1998 television effort has good intentions but just comes across like a preachy Afterschool Special. Some of the situations and dialogue venture into the silly, making it an enjoyable watch--but not for the right reasons. Rent It.