Classic Movie Review: Exotica, a Canadian thriller from 1994!

Sexplortation drama is a very difficult movie subject to take serious, for example Demi Moores movie "Striptease" from 1996 did everything wrong with a story about strippers life but poorly executed with uncomfortable actors and actresses.

But 2 years before that, one movie from Canada manage to do everything right. "Exotica" from 1994 with a superb director from Egypt Atom Egoyan, and a great Star Trek actor Bruce Greenwood on the cast list, Exotica not only makes a sexplortation but an exiting thriller and a heart feeling drama and the story is not told but added in like a puzzle piece by piece.

Story:

Francis Brown (Bruce Greenwood) is a Tax Auditor, who lives a lonely life. He is visiting a strip club named Exotica to survive his loneliness. While there he befriended a stripper named Christina (Mia Kirshner) who he can relate to by allow her to dance for him private. Their friendship unease her lover Eric (Elias Koteias) who meets Francis in the bathroom and tell him a story that his favorite stripper would love it if he touched her. Francis knows it's against the rules  but when Eric tells him she is into it then his world falls apart. After being kicked out of Exotica, Francis hire a gay egg smuggler named Thomas (Don McKellar) to help him to confront Eric once and for all. But when he sees Eric again, Eric reveals that he and Christina shared an unpleasant past with Francis, the death of his daughter.

Overall:

Don't be fooled by the plot nor the title, Exotica is much more, visually it's beautiful, how the stripclub Exotica is staged looks beautifully, every character, every breath, every background is like a paint job, Egoyan really knows how to add his audience into his movies, and makes a painting comes to life. The cast is superb, Bruce Greenwood known from Star Trek is one of the best Canadian actors and he show it here as well in his performance as the sad lonely Francis, also Elias Koteias who is known for the Turtles movies is well played as the jealous and mysterious DJ Eric. Exotica is the most magical movie of all time.

I reward it with 8/10.