The Oh in Ohio (2006)

Alyssa Donahue: "Now each of you will notice that you have a small hand mirror you on your easels. I want you to discover your vaginas, every glorious fold. every beautiful nook and cranny. This is your power center. Liberate your labia, value your vulva, claim your clitoris. Claim it, christen it!"Priscilla Chase seems to have it all -- the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect husband -- except for in bed, where sex has always left her a bit short of the finish line. ReviewParker Posey got game. If that wasn't evidenced in Party Girl, there's ample proof of her comic gifts in Billy Kent's frosh comedy The Oh in Ohio.That's "oh" as in orgasm, only Priscilla Chase (Posey) doesn't know it yet. She's content with her job luring business to Cleveland. Her husband Jack (Paul Rudd), a teacher and formidable cocksman, is despondent over his frigid wife's inability to come. To save her marriage, she enrolls in a masturbation class (taught by Liza Minnelli), but favors technology instead, and purchases a vibrator from a shop run by an unbilled Heather Graham.Once Priscilla experiences plastic bliss, she's hooked. Marriage ends; life begins. Posey's expert at playing the uptight, pre-orgasmic Priscilla, and the pansexual aftermath (she beds everyone, including Graham). In a classic scene involving a strategically placed vibrating pager and the frantic calls of her husband, she throws herself around in the throes of passion during a boardroom pitch meeting like a priapic marionette. The scene is foolish, but Posey wills it to life. (Earlier, after slipping the pager into her underwear, she calls herself.) Posey's not the whole show. Rudd illuminates the disconnect between sensitivity and aggression, especially when ? after a night with a teenage girl ? he boasts about his "magnificent cock" with bravado and a hint of relief. As Coach, Keith David steals his scenes with impish gleam and a dirty cackle. And Liza Minnelli's masturbation guru is scenery chewing at its finest.The Oh in Ohio could be better. It runs out of steam; the various plot elements never resonate. But a film about a woman discovering not just sex but joy is a wondrous thing. Posey keeps it floating. She's got a shimmer in her smile, a dirty thought in her mind that she's never going to share. You stick around on the off chance that she might just let you in on it.