Spanking the Monkey (1994)

Starring Jeremy Davies, Alberta Watson, Benjamin Hendrickson, and Carla Gallo.  Cinematography by Michael Mayers.  Edited by Pamela Martin.  Produced by Dean Silvers. Written and Directed by David O. Russell.

Ray (played by Jeremy Davies) is a young and promising medical student studying at MIT.  He has been awarded an internship with the surgeon general over his summer break, but Ray’s father (played by Benjamin Hendrickson) has other plans in mind for him. His mother, Susan (played by Alberta Watson), has suffered a broken leg and will need assistance while her husband is traveling for business. 

Ray is given no other option but to stay with her as his father drives away. Susan is almost completely incapacitated and needs help with virtually everything.  She even demands he stays with her, even while she is in the bathroom which is obviously awkward and uncomfortable for her son. Things are about to get a whole lot weirder between the two after a night of drinking.

Though his leap into a filmmaking career came relatively late, David O. Russell was no novice behind a camera.  One of the jobs in his previous professional life was working as a political organizer, where he would document subjects on video.  This experience led to his very first film, a short documentary titled “Panama to Boston”. 

The film acted as a calling card of sorts and soon Russell was offered a position as a production assistant with the series “Smithsonian World” for the Public Broadcasting Station. He took the job but was soon hard at work writing and directing his next short film, “Bingo Inferno”, which was featured at the 1987 Sundance Film Festival. The critical success of this short film would lead to his third short “Hairway to the Stars”; a film funded entirely by grants from the New York Council for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. 

He would later earn a second grant to produce yet another short, but Russell had decided that he was burned out on short films (the idea for the approved short would later be fleshed out into I Heart Huckabees). He took his forty thousand dollars in grants and put it towards a “black fantasy” that had had during a stint on jury duty. This would ultimately become his first feature length project, Spanking the Monkey.

The money that Russell had been awarded only covered about half of what he needed to produce Spanking the Monkey.  To make up the difference Russell went to friends, family, and associates asking for fifteen hundred dollar investments.  He also was able to negotiate for leftovers and remnants of 35mm film stock from local merchants.

This piecing together of the finances, instead of taking one lump sum from a single investor, gave Russell complete artistic control over his project; something that would be crucial for a film dealing with mother/son incest. Spanking the Monkey went on to win major awards at the Sundance Film Festival and the Independent Spirit Awards. But unfortunately the NEA was slightly less impressed.

The grant they had given to Russell was for the production of a short film.  After his one hundred minute project hit theaters, Russell was asked to return the twenty thousand dollars, which he eventually did.  Spanking the Monkey is a great film, but definitely not something you would want to watch with your mom… unless you love her in that special way.

Budget: $200,000

Total US Gross: $1,359,736

Genre: Black Comedy

Runtime: 100 Minutes

US Release Date: 7/15/94

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Awards:
Sundance Film Festival: 
Won the Audience Award for a drama. 
Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for a drama.

Tagline: A Gripping Comedy About Letting Go

Quote: “All I ask is that you take care of your mother. Is that so hard?”