'Sex and Death 101'

Rating:

John Anderson

April 4, 2008

When Roderick (Simon Baker) gets an e-mail list of all the women he's ever slept with, he thinks it's a prank. When he realizes it includes all the women he will ever sleep with, "Sex and Death 101" becomes a not-quite-successful something else, including a burlesque of male libido and a treatise on love.

Baker, the "bad" boyfriend in "The Devil Wears Prada," possessed the right kind of smarmy charm to make Roderick work; Winona Ryder, as an avenging angel/serial killer, is amusing as usual and kind of a bonus in the script by director Daniel Waters, whose writing career is sort of a Whitman's Sampler of nutty '90s movies - "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane," "Hudson Hawk," "Batman Returns," "Demolition Man."

Once upon a time, he wrote "Heathers," and while "S&D101" is not quite that, it's a return to something closer to the caustic wit of which he's capable. His movie does ask a lot of the viewer; its success will depend on how cooperative one wants to be. If you're a woman, it's likely to be less so.

(2 Â½ STARS) SEX AND DEATH 101 (R). With Leslie Bibb, Mindy Cohn. 1:40 (adult content, language). At the Village East, Manhattan.