Regarding the question of the relationship between unreliable narration in a film vs. in a novel or short story, in both cases this phenomenon depends upon the creation of an ironic destance between what the narrator tells us and what we subsequently learn in one way or another. The irony can be concurrent with the narration in a film in the sense that what we are seeing as we listen to the narrator can obviously contradict what the narrator is saying. This is a typical device in comedy and satire, of course. In more serious applications of the unreliable narrator, the irony may depend simply upon our ignorance of certain "facts" at the time we receive the narrative information, or it may depend upon actual deception by the narrator. "The Opposite of Sex" does seem to be a fertile field for studying this question. The added dimension in this case is that we learn rather early in the film that the lead character and narrator is lying to everyone. That allows us to lend a more skeptical ear to what we hear from her as the film progresses. Still, some of her claims about very serious matters take us in, it seems to me, even though we are aware of what a manipulator she is. I have a sense that a screen writer has to handle this sort of thing very carefully to avoid losing the audience. That would also be true in a novel or short story, but a reader has the option of doubling back a few pages without paying another admission charge to review the early portion of the work. Dan Gribbin ([log in to unmask]) Professor of English Ferrum College Ferrum, Virginia 24088 540-365-7303 ********************************************* ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/screensite