Center of the World

Wayne Wang's latest is an extremely erotic, desperately creepy, sad and hollow movie that takes a standard story and makes it so much better by making it a lot more banal. A wealthy young man pays a prostitute to spend a weekend in Las Vegas with him, and, of course, he falls in love with her. But this is no Pretty Woman; rather than that fairy tale, it's a mixture of pornographic sex scenes, unresolvable emotions and dialogue that's so real it's embarrassing to listen to. Although the film features only a few characters and is shot mostly indoors in tight settings, it avoids the pitfalls of the filmed play by employing some of the back-and-forth editing that made Memento so great. Definitely worth seeing if you're a fan of Wayne Wang, fine acting, non-linear storytelling, or just plain old hot sex.