Rating: 
Summary: a painting with words...
Review: Everyone has their wants, not that they'll get what they want. The movie says it itself. The movie is a mesh of many people with many longings; Exotica the club is where their stories intersect-though not for the first time. The movie starts from the outside, slowly peeling back into the delicate middle, onion layers. The characters are all believable, three-dimensional, though the jumping back and forth (a la Sweet Hereafter) gets to me. It's a movie that reminds me of a painting, like Caravaggio-wierd beauty in the darkness. So there. I still think I prefer Sweet Hereafter.
Rating: 
Summary: MASTERPIECE
Review: In my opinion, Atom Egoyan's EXOTICA is one of the best movies of the last decade. Those of us who had the opportunity to watch in the eighties Egoyan's first movies such as THE ADJUSTER or FAMILY VIEWING are not surprised by the nowadays international recognition of the armenian-canadian director. With EXOTICA, he has joined the very small guild of the writer/directors whose name will be remembered in the future. Atom Egoyan is treating such universal themes as Redemption, Guiltiness or Desire, mixing them in a puzzle of images and subplots that leave us petrified by the beauty of the movie and the deepness of the feelings experienced by the characters. EXOTICA, like a book you cherish, must be seen several times in order to appreciate the complexity of the screenplay. Don't hesitate to buy it, you cannot be wrong with this movie. There are alas no bonus features with this Disney/Buena Vista DVD, a company that prefers present extra long documentaries about the making of some infantile movie rather than contribute to the nobler but less profitable effort to help true artists reveal their work. Shame. A DVD zone your library.
Rating:
Summary: Very good movie
Review: It's a movie about a strange group of people centered in a strip club. Everyone's motivation for doing what they do is totally different. People aren't who they seem to be. The best thing about this movie is the intersection of the character's lives. Who they are and what they mean to each other has nothing to do with stripping or sex. What bring the characters lives together is a horrible event that has marked all of their lives forever. If you like movies like "CRASH" or "TRAFFIC" you will enjoy this film.
Rating:
Summary: Mysterious & Insightful
Review: Four main characters meet through their connections to a strip club. This movie is arty, psychological, slow, and requires one's full attention. It demonstrates how limited information shapes our interpretations of others - each scene reveals more about the characters and clarifies their perspectives. The cast performs perfectly - Bruce Greenwood, possibly best know for his roles in made-for-TV adaptations of Danielle Steel novels, is brilliant here. Exotica has been one of my favorites since it came out, along with The Usual Suspects and House of Games. If you like House of Games and The Piano, you will probably enjoy this film
Rating:
Summary: Daringly Original Film About the Trappings of Fate
Review: A brilliant and complex film that intertwines the destinies of four people via a strip club named "Exotica". This club is an appropriate meeting place for these characters since it is a metaphor for what is happening in the film: the stripping bare of each character's hidden secrets and painful histories. Fate/destiny/karma is the major theme of this penetrating film. The characters feel trapped by the circumstances that life has handed them and feel helpless and manipulated by fate. "We rarely have the luxury of choosing our life..," exclaims the stripper, elaborating upon the theme of the film. "No one asks to be born...," declares the auditor, as he ponders the terrible tragedies that his destiny has afforded him. In addition, as the destinies of the characters converge, we learn each one has been both pain inflictor and healer to the other, similar to the theme of "balancing one's karma". The director skillfully plays out these themes in a highly creative and original way. We are slowly drawn into the lives of these characters in a mysterious, film noir atmosphere. The perceptive script, haunting score, and non linear storyline all contribute to the powerful impact this dazzling film has on the audience. It is a film not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: Not for those trained in the obvious.
Review: For those of you who have given the film's it's deserved due you have to read the reviews from those who found the movie unwatchable. (...).
Yes, our television trained mass public will find this movie trash because their minds will not comprehend the genuis apparent in this film. I've never in my life seen a movie where all the characters who seemed one dimensional and creepy turn out to be beautiful. It's brilliant. (...).
This film is a test of your skills of perception.
Many will fail. Thank GOD I passed.
Anyone who has ever moaned about the watering down of our modern art forms can breath a sigh of relief. There is intelligent life in the film industry.
Rating:
Summary: If the gods made a film about humans...
Review: If the gods made a film about humans, this is the way they would do it: everything building to the 101st minute, and always with a feeling that the director and the actors are working on a grid where events are shaped and controlled and understood down to the level of the millisecond. If you're a musician, you'll flip over this film, because Egoyan writes it and directs it with the musical intelligence of a great composer-conductor like Mahler. Might be my pro-music bias, but to me Exotica suggests that a new standard has been set for film-making in general, now that Egoyan (and Mychael Danna) have demonstrated that a certain kind of perfection IS achievable. Looking for other films that might deserve similar praise, I have to think far afield, say to Fellini's 8 1/2 or to Argento's Suspiria - the only films I know of where Egoyan's mode of perfection has ever been approached.
Rating:
Summary: Wait for the ending
Review: It is both fortunate and unfortunate that the full pay-off for watching 'Exotica' only comes with a complete viewing. Fortunate, because of the breathtaking 'ahah' experience it provokes. Unfortunate, because many viewers may not have the commitment to let the film play out. Indeed, during my first several encounters (on IFC) with the film, I tuned out prematurely, thinking I was watching a 'soft core' film. Certainly, there is sex, and nudity, but, in the end, the viewer comes to understand he is watching a movie - not about sex - but about love. The plot(s) winds and meanders, and is probably more clear with a second viewing, but all this is necessary to set up the shattering ending. Highly recommended!!! And Leonard Cohen on the soundtrack is a bonus.
Rating:
Summary: A Phenomenal But Unexpectedly Nonerotic Film
Review: This was easily one of the best films made in the 1990s, but it has to be strongly emphasized that it is not a sex film. The movie is not about sex, but about relationships, and the bizarre and wildly unexpected ways our lives can criss-cross each other. The movie does not have a fraction of the intended sexual content of a movie like BASIC INSTINCT or SHOWGIRLS. If someone rents EXOTICA expecting to be titillated, they are going to be severely disappointed. On the other hand, if you want a film that will challenge you intellectually, this is your flick. The movie is best seen two or more times. The plot is not incoherent, as some writing here have found it, but complex. And part of the job of a re-viewing is seeing all the subtle ways the lives of the different characters are bound up with the lives of the other principle characters. Gradually we are given more and more information about the characters, and when we receive the last bits in the final seconds of the movie, the effect, at least for me, is staggering. The acting is superb. Bruce Greenwood, a staple of Atom Egoyen films, is marvelous as the accountant. His character is also the hardest to figure out. It is only near the very end of the movie when we have enough evidence of what has happened to him that we are able to understand what makes him tick. Mia Kirshner is good in her role as the stripper in the club who has a very unusual relationship with the account. Again, the dynamics of their connection is not explained until the very last shot in the film. But the kudos for the most impressive job in this film goes to the tragically underrated and underappreciated Elias Koteas, as the club DJ and estranged boyfriend of the stripper. In most films, Koteas has only a very small role to work with, such as LIVING OUT LOUD (where he plays "the kisser" [check the credits! that's his character's name!] the man Holly Hunter meets very briefly on the back landing of a nightclub) or as the morally conflicted captain who is relieved of his duty for showing too much concern for the well-being of his men in THE THIN RED LINE. EXOTICA gives us a hint of what he could do with more significant roles. EXOTICA has one of the most surreal scenes I have ever seen: Mia Kirshner dressed as a Catholic schoolgirl, signing in American Sign Language the lyrics of Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows", while she does a strip dance (again, not as sexy as it might sound). So, while not even remotely a sex film, this is an exceptionally complex and intelligent one about the intricacies of human relationships. In closing I would like to agree with the reviewer who found the cover of the video/DVD to be horrid. It seriously misrepresents the nature of the film. This is very much an "art" film, not an erotic one.
Rating:
Summary: Multi-layered, haunting piece of film mastery.
Review: While Canadian writer-director Atom Egoyan may be best known for his sweeping, 1997 adaptation of Russel Banks' novel The Sweet Hereafter (for which he was nominated for a best directing Oscar), Exotica vastly surpasses Hereafter in its deeply layered secrets and complexity. "You have to convince yourself that this person has something hidden, that you have to find yourself," states a character at the beginning of the film. Each of these characters--the DJ of Club Exotica (Elias Koteas), the pregnant owner of the club (Egoyan's wife Arsinee Khanjian), the mysterious, school girl dancer (Mia Kirshner), her most frequent customer (Bruce Greenwood), and the lonely owner of an exotic pet store (Don McKellar)--has something hidden, deep within the interactions between each other and the non-linear storytelling of Exotica, which multiple viewings enhance to even greater detail. After winning many Genie Awards (the Canadian equivelant of the American Oscar) including best director and picture, as well as being hailed as a "Miramax Classic" on the box, one would think that the DVD would be filled with lots of added bonuses, and at the very least: a theatrical trailer. Alas, the Exotica DVD boasts no special features, if you don't count the gorgeous widescreen transfer, much to my own dismay. Since many critics praised the film when it was released in 1994, especially Roger Ebert, there is hope that a new DVD will be created. The Criterion Collection includes numerous foreign, avant-garde, cultish films on DVD, most all of them boasting quite a few, excellent special features (especially the sadly-out-of-print Sid & Nancy DVD; but not for the feature-less Night Porter disc). One would hope, with the support of a few major critics and strong following, that Mirimax (or Criterion) would release a new version of this DVD, featuring all the added features, commentaries, bios that the film rightfully deserves.
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