Twenty-One

There's plenty of frank sex talk when director/co-writer Boyd takes his Steadicam through doors normally marked private. No sooner have the credits rolled than we're with Katie (Kensit) in the bathroom of her New York apartment, where she scrubs her feet in the bidet and delivers her first direct-to-camera monologue about sex and friendship. Cue a series of flashbacks to her life in London: Dad (Shepherd) endures a failed marriage, her lovers (Sewell and Ryecart) are respectively on drugs and married, and her confidante (Thompson) is a compulsive eater. The discursive approach is strangely alienating, and too often the relationships smack of contrivance. Kensit brings the right buoyancy to some of her monologues, but there's not enough introspection for the more demanding emotional exchanges.