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I Am a Sex Addict (2005) More at IMDbPro »

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33 comments in total

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57 out of 63 people found the following comment useful :-
Quirky and Charming., 22 April 2005

Author: Alan (alantes1@aol.com) from Northern, N.J.

Caveh, the director and lead actor of the film has a rather interesting problem; he is addicted to sex with prostitutes. The film is comprised of narrations re-telling the stories of his failed attempts to stop his addiction and the relationships that are destroyed as a result. Mixed in the narration is interview footage of Caveh just before his wedding (his third), where he narrates his struggle. He eventually finds recovery in a 12-step program, and finds a level of happiness.

At the U.S. premiere at the Tribeca Film festival, he revealed that the vast majority of these very personal and embarrassing stories were true. Also, his wife was in the audience and he reports that after 7 years his relationship is strong.

As for the film, it's actually very funny, as Caveh is able to present dysfunctional scenarios in a self-defacing and humorous light. It's a shame that a movie like this will probably never get distributed world-wide, but if you see it at a film festival, go see it. Highly recommended.

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51 out of 59 people found the following comment useful :-
This film is very funny and moving at the same time, 25 April 2005
Author: gabriellehamill from United States

I saw this film at the Tribeca Film Festival and loved every minute of it. The film chronicles the director Caveh Zahedi's own proclivity for prostitutes and how this "addiction" ruined two marriages and numerous relationships. When he meets his match in Deven, played superbly by an actress I have never seen before, the film moves from hilarious to deeply moving. Deven has addictions of her own, and suddenly Caveh is confronted with a mirror of his insensitivity to others. What seems like a film that might only appeal to a male audience, turns out out to be fascinating and touching for women too. Zahedi's policy of complete honesty may have tortured many of his ex's but it puts us, the audience, in the cat-bird seat. This film has great potential for reaching a mass audience in my opinion.

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19 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
Self indulgent, but a fascinating psychological study, 27 November 2006

Author: GMEllis625 from United States

Obviously not a Hollywood, high-budget film, but if you can get past that it is really interesting. Yes, the Producer/Director/Writer/Star is being very self indulgent. Of course you learn from the film that he has always been that way. But this film is an outstanding a study of a male viewpoint of relationships and sex.

He repeatedly says that all he wants is someone he can be totally honest with, and he hears several women tell him they want that honesty. Of course the truth is that we only want our partners to be honest when it matches our own view of reality. When their truth conflicts with our view of reality we either try to argue them out of their truth or force them to deny it. In fact, as much as Caveh wants the freedom of being honest with his partners he never gives them that same freedom.

Don't rent this for the sex scenes and don't rent this for a great plot. But if you like psychological studies of relationships, this film is will worth the time and money.

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17 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
A Sexual Narcissist Tells All, 15 September 2006

Author: fwomp from United States

Although a dark comedy with a serious lean toward sexual narcissism, this film's quirks will appeal to those who don't mind exploring those dark corners of one's desires and laughing at their own inadequacies.

Caveh Zahedi is the screenwriter, director, star, and historian regarding his personal battles with sex addiction.

The most entertaining aspects of the film are that it is shot rather unconventionally. Although the film starts with Zahedi talking to the camera, waiting to be married for the third time, the scenes zip back and forth between Zahedi the narrator, Zahedi the actor, and Zahedi the narrator during acting (he'll occasionally stare at the camera and make a rather pithy comment while acting within the framework of the film). Part documentary, part fictional take on his experiences, the film delves deep into sexual promiscuity. Bit by bit we get to watch Zahedi fall into a pit of self-gratification with little or no concern for his girlfriends or wives. That he tries to be "honest" and "open" only shows his continued deep slide into the addictive process. When the women in his life fight with him, he's at a loss to understand why ("But you said I could have sex with a prostitute!") The comedy is all based around Zahedi's lack of self-control and his relationships based solely on sexual need. Watching him receive oral sex — his facial expressions and loss of auditory control — are absolutely hilarious; not to mention his fifteen second rise to orgasm.

The film is edited extremely well, mostly taking place in San Francisco, but also in Paris and a few other locations. The map animation sequences are very nicely done as are a few other animations related to travel and Zahedi's history.

The fact that I AM A SEX ADDICT won the Gotham Award in 2005 for Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You should be a useful gauge for those considering this movie as a rental or purchase.

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12 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Very true to life, 28 April 2006

Author: red_iguana27 from usa

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I happened to be fortunate enough to view this film in an actual theater, one of the few venues that was showing it nationally...but you'll probably see it appearing on IFC soon enough.

I went in expecting "I Am a Sex Addict" to be a comedic documentary about relationships, along the lines of Myles Berkowitz's "20 Dates" (1998), but was pleasantly surprised to see that Zahedi made a more serious film.

This is a gut-wrenchingly honest, self-effacing, and at times very funny, film about the nature of addiction and the seed that drives it: in this case, Zahedi's apparent fear of commitment.

He does an admirable job tracing the history of his addiction to having sex with prostitutes, and then talking about the nature of addiction in general. Where I think the film fails just slightly is in his explanation of how in fact he got over his addiction...while he does provide one (using an apt metaphor from Greek mythology), but it feels a bit clipped compared to the pacing of the rest of the film. The details of his "recovery" are not given the same attention.

The film's editing is diverse, integral to the storyline, and done with great care, and the animation sequences that are interspersed within the film are also excellent...they are reminiscent of Linklater's film "Waking Life" (2001).

Though it's been a while since I saw it, I think Ross McElwee's "Sherman's March" (1986) would make for a good companion piece with "I Am a Sex Addict" - both are autobiographical pieces that deal with the nature of premarital relationships and the author's neuroses to be found therein.

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13 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
witty, honest, gritty, bold - and thank god the NEA said yes to it, 23 April 2005

Author: centralparknyc from NYC

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Such an interesting concept and I wondered how it would actually be done. The character and actor are wonderfully the same person and that makes for a unique film. The actor could have created an ideal character, but succeeds in making a film about himself that truly reflects who he is, his fears, and his inner thoughts. What he says starts to make sense through the film. It should, as it is an addiction that is as real to him as any other more common addiction that we might identify with. This refreshing film appeals to a wide range of people. It tells his real story and the note at the end about things being changed for dramatic purposes leads you to believe he made things up. He didn't. From what I understand, he just condensed a few minor girlfriends into the major characters.

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13 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Seriously funny, 4 April 2006

Author: bowlofsoul23 from Turkey

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Diminutive, wide-eyed, expressive, furiously honest, and charmingly juvenile, Caveh Zahedi's character in "I'm a Sex Addict" (2005), who's also named Caveh, is absolutely hilarious in this self-reflective examination of one man's addiction. The addiction happens to be to prostitutes.

I think you probably get an idea of what kind of film this is when you hear that the main character and narrator of the film has the same name as the director, writer, and actor. Ah, but this is no standard low budget Sundance fare.

In "I'm a Sex Addict", we get to know less about the prostitutes and more about the women in Caveh's life. From his first love, with whom he has an "open" relationship, to his French wife (his first), who attempts to accept his need for prostitutes, then on to a brilliant screenwriter he meets in LA, then an initially open-minded Austin-based film festival director, and finally to his wife-to-be (his third).

Throughout Caveh attempts to be brutally honest with all the women, with essentially everyone in his life with the exception of, of course, himself. As with many addicts, he attempts to eliminate his need through various means, all of which he documents in clinical fashion with chalk and board. Although we know and probably recognize the more narcissistic side of Caveh, we're rooting for him all the way. This has to do with the fact that the film is so personal, but also because it's just plain funny. I nearly lost it in a scene where Caveh attempts to resolve issues with his diaper-disdaining mother by writhing on the floor baby-like, calling for "Mommy! Mommy!". Classic.

(Sorry if this review seems kind of clinical, it's from my blogging on the Istanbul Film Festival- cococravescinema.blogspot.com)

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7 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
daring film, but for most of the time wordy and a bit annoying, 23 September 2006

Author: manicman84 from Poland

I am a sex addict is not another stupid comedy as one might suppose while looking at the tittle. It makes an attempt to be a smart film on very important subject, that is sex addiction. The movie succeeds in this respect and even at some points resembles more drama than comedy. Although I approve of extremely personal films with wise message and dealing with difficult, taboo subjects, I regrettably cannot write that I am a sex addict is a good or bad film. In fact, it's a mixed bag and wasted potential for me. Caveh Zahedi tells the story about himself without embelishment and sentimentalism, which requires a great bravery and distance. Nonetheless, the picture is very uneven. It starts very well, but then it 's worse and worse. The flick becomes wordy and lengthy. What is the biggest vice is a first-person narration which is repetitive and to a large degree irrelevant. Zahedi also appears too frequently (he's present in every scene). The superior moments are when Zahedi plays with form in order to entertain viewers. The ending is satisfactory, but it's too late to save this average movie.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Get this guy a blow-up doll, 9 September 2007

Author: Rogue-32 from L A.

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

When I was growing up in NYC, all the girls I knew would have most likely had a word for this guy: a creep. Not attractive in any way, not even in a Woody Allen or R Crumb intellectual/brilliant/funny sort of way, Caveh is repugnant to look at, with his scrawny body, weird face and even weirder ideas about relationships. I found it hard to believe that the women depicted in the movie (and shown in their real-life identities as well) would be attracted to him in the first place. This having been said, the film was interesting.

He does attempt to explore areas that have not really been dealt with in this particular way before - how some people (women, in this movie) try to be open-minded with their boyfriend's behavior and confessions about sex but in reality, they can't actually accept it. This has been shown before, of course, in other movies, but it's the way it's depicted here that is quite original. And it rings true: I've learned that in intimate relationships of any kind, it's quite possibly impossible to be thoroughly forth-coming (no pun intended). It was mind-boggling to watch Caveh perversely attempting to be a hundred percent honest - his version of it, anyway - and how it always wound up being not only destructive to every relationship, but, even worse, it came across as being cruel, obtuse and self-indulgent.

There are funny parts in the film though. What I thought was the most hilarious was how, whenever he would approach a hooker, he would ask "How much" and when she told him, he would say, "I have to think about it." Then he would ask other hookers what they were charging, as if he were comparison shopping. This struck me as being really humorous. I understood that he was also getting off on merely talking to them, of course, and he was indeed not sure if he was gonna go through with it many times, but it was the comparison-shopping factor that made me laugh.

More seriously, it was very revealing to see how his thoughts and feelings on the conscious level versus the unconscious and subconscious levels regarding women were completely opposite. Throughout the film, he keeps talking about transcending negative feelings, like jealousy for instance, but yet he finds that when the tables are turned by one of his female lovers, he is consumed by jealousy and transcendence is nowhere in sight. He throws these words out like the can be simplistically applied, without deep inner work, expecting things from others that he is sadly inequipped to give, inadvertently making him a hypocrite.

More along these lines, he states in the film that he respects women, he's a feminist, blah blah blah, but yet his behavior toward them as shown in the course of the proceedings is criminally selfish. At one point, he even says he looked at one of the women he was pursuing for sex, saw her soul, and shockingly realized she was a real person, with real needs and feelings of her own. Welcome to the human race, Caveh.

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6 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
"I am a Puer Eternis and a Narcissist.", 21 June 2008

Author: archiecm from San Diego, California

Yes movie nuts that's what the title should have been: I'm a Kid that Can't Grow Up.

At first I was impressed by his insight into his sexual needs. And his wanting-to-have-a-girlfriend-he-can-be-honest-with sounds like it's progress. (He doesn't want to hide his urges.) But he repeats the cycle with three new girlfriends and you see that he's not learning. He's just thinking up naughty and then giving in. It's really about hooking someone else into watching his drama. I finally caught on when, with the third girl, he freelances all night, then comes home to Christa and kisses her and says he wants to try to kick the habit. That's his whole problem. He doesn't want to kick anything or anybody except whomever is his lover of the moment. It gets boring when you see he's going nowhere and he succeeds again in alienating yet another woman who started out being understanding. No that's not enough for this guy. It's "Come watch me," then "Help me quit," then it's "Don't you go out and do this stuff because I'll get jealous." Enough. I could not finish watching the thing. This film are a lot like Henry Jaglom's films. They're all about Jaglom.

I gave it more than one star because his story sounded worth hearing for about a half hour.

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