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Sex, Lies, and Videotape
Ann Bishop Mullany lives in Baton Rouge, unhappily but comfortably married to John, a successful lawyer. She is in therapy, where she reveals that she is repulsed by the idea of him touching her.
Graham Dalton, an old close college friend of John and now a drifter with some money saved up, visits Baton Rouge to see John and perhaps stay in the city. When he arrives at their home, he meets Ann, who learns that John has invited Graham to stay with them until he finds an apartment. When John arrives home, Graham's demeanor becomes remarkably more guarded; though he realizes he now has nothing in common with John, he and Ann get along well.
John is having an affair with Ann's sister Cynthia, a free-spirited artist and bartender, which he rationalizes by blaming Ann's frigidity. Ann helps Graham look for an apartment. Once he has a place, she makes an impromptu visit and notices stacks of camcorder videotapes, labeled with women's names. When asked, Graham explains that they contain interviews with women about their deepest sexual desires and fantasies. Uncomfortable, Ann abruptly leaves.
The next day, Cynthia appears uninvited at Graham's apartment and presses Graham to explain what "spooked" Ann. He reluctantly explains it was the videotapes that disturbed her and that he achieves gratification by watching the videos in private. Graham propositions Cynthia to make an interview tape, assuring her that only he will see it. She agrees, and later tells Ann about the experience. She is horrified, as is John, when Cynthia later tells him.
Cleaning her home the next day, Ann discovers Cynthia's pearl earring in her bedroom while vacuuming and deduces her affair with John. Furious, Ann goes to Graham's apartment with the intention of making a videotape. He objects, but she is insistent.
Later, Ann demands a divorce from John and reveals that she made a tape with Graham. John immediately becomes enraged so that he seems ready to strike Ann, but instead rushes to Graham's apartment and assaults Graham, punching him in the face, then dragging him outside and locking him out, then watches Ann's tape. In the video, Ann says she has never felt any kind of "satisfaction" from sex. Graham asks if she ever thinks of having sex with other men; she admits she has thought of Graham.
Ann turns the camera on Graham, who resists opening up but soon confesses that he is haunted by his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth and that his motivation in returning to Baton Rouge was an attempt to achieve some closure. He explains that he was a pathological liar, which destroyed his relationship with her. Graham has since gone to great lengths to avoid people and relationships. Ann kisses him, then he turns off the camcorder, ending the tape.
An unhinged John joins Graham on the front porch and, with intense viciousness, claims to have had sex with Elizabeth while she and Graham were a couple, saying: "She was no saint. She was good in bed, and she could keep a secret. That's all I can say about her." After he leaves, a distraught Graham destroys his camcorder and all of the videotapes.
Some time later, John is urgently summoned to his boss's office. Ann and Cynthia reconcile at the bar Cynthia tends. Later, Ann goes to Graham's and joins him on the front porch. She predicts rain, to which he replies: "It is raining."