Very few films have sex scenes that are crucial to the plot. Prick Up Your Ears has one that is, since it provides maybe the only clue to the film's central mystery: why would the hugely successful playwright Joe Orton persist in a painfully unequal relationship with Ken Halliwell, an older, unsuccessful and intemperate man? I might also say unattractive, but that would be leaving my domain of expertise behind.

The moment in question comes early in the film, when Orton, a working-class yob from Leicester, is beginning to break through in London's late-60s theater scene, which according to this film was some kind of homosexual castle in the sky. Despite the generally permissive atmosphere, Orton fancies himself a modern day Christopher Marlowe, building dual reputations as a playwright of weight and substance, while taking any opportunity to leave his calling card in the sexual underworld. It's a lifestyle choice that continually bolsters his ego and complicates his long-running relationship with Ken.

Zooming "packages" in the square one day, Joe and Ken are invited up to a loft for a random encounter with a stranger. Once in the room, Joe is unquestionably the dominant figure - the only question is, does the stranger want Joe badly enough to include Ken in the mix? The stranger hesitates, steels himself, and then commits. Once we've seen this scene, we remember back to others. Ken would commit some horrible social faux pas, and everyone would steam while Joe smirked. The game is that everyone, in one way or another, must be willing to swallow Ken in order to get close to Joe.

Alfred Molina plays Ken as a man who comes in the guise of a mentor, only to disguise his own lack of education in the game of life. In the confines of his apartment, he is able to instruct Joe on this and that topic, but out in the real world, it's Joe that people are interested in, and Ken is the invisible man. As the movie pushes forward, and Joe begins to grab more and more success, disaster approaches. Ken begins to take pills, make idle threats and lash out at random. When word comes that Paul McCartney is on his way over for an unexpected visit one day, Ken quickly issues what sounds like an ultimatum: "Just introduce me. Say who I am, and then I'll make myself scarce."

Prick Up Your Ears (yes, the title contains an intentional anagram) has performances that are better than the movie deserves, if that makes sense. Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina are outstanding, but the movie is directed by Stephen Frears, who has never had a hit with me, unless you count The Grifters. He weighs down the story with a useless device that involves two "present-day" people blathering on to each other about what we've just seen in the flashback. It's amateur hour. The film is also visually bland, sapped of color and energy, and doesn't tell us much of anything about the theater scene of the time.

Everything is kept above water by the two central performances. Gary Oldman is at the top of his game as Joe Orton, the sick twist who steals his dead mother's teeth to use in plays and sabotages himself by turning in a commissioned film-script for the Beatles that contains gay sex. His musings on what he'd personally like to do to the Beatles and their "Liverpudlian underpants" is hilarious, as is the beach scene in Morocco where our heroes romp around Gidget-style with a group of boys. This has to be one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen - made all the funnier because of the abandon with which Gary Oldman throws himself into it.

Alfred Molina's Ken is a fascinating portrait of someone who has all the tools for success except the talent. He's also a man of deep insincerity who thinks that he is terribly clever, and who imagines that he can act his way through life. He is shocked whenever someone catches onto him, and infuriated that skepticism about his relationship with Joe comes from all quarters - even from a psychiatrist:


Psychiatrist: You're fond of your roommate.

Ken: We're everything to each other.

Psychiatrist: Sleep together, do you?

Ken: No. (smile) But we have sex.

Psychiatrist: (skeptical) Are you sure?


If the first sex scene is the most revealing scene in the film, the second-most revealing would have to be the first fight between the two. What begins and ends as a typical lover's tiff is made alarming because of the size disparity between the hulking giant Alfred Molina and Gary Oldman, who is as frail as a parakeet. It's just one more inequality between them and further illustrates the unhealthiness and danger of their situation. The script seems to have a lot to say about self-destructive nature in general, but the director doesn't do a very good job of teasing it out.

The big turning point in the film involves an awards ceremony: Joe has the opportunity to invite Ken to a crucial night in his career, and declines. The film takes an interesting point of view on the events that follow. It would be easy to write off Ken as an Amadeus type, or a Fatal Attraction-era headcase. But the film isn't ready to let Joe Orton off the hook that easy, nor condemn Ken without examining his side. In the aftermath of the events, when Joe's agent is asked about why Ken did what he did, she says with a shrug in her voice: "Sharing is what wives want."