The Boy in the Basement

Description
**** (four stars) Romance novels are typically cheesy and disposable—or, maybe, depending on your sensibility, totally hot. Fortunately, Katherine Heller's “live action romance novel,” The Boy in the Basement, maintains enough humor and self-awareness to deliver the sexy goods without all the overwrought buildup that typifies the genre. At night, the household of four college girls is disturbed—nay, ravished—by a young man's forced entry. When the boy is caught, however, the tables are turned as the lascivious ladies tie him up and make him their slave. Each girl's quirk is satisfied via the boy's mastery of the ways of love: the hippie is satiated through Tantra, the S&M fiend is dominated, the virgin is humored, etc. Sexy stuff aside, the script is funny throughout, with characters riffing on their clichéd identities and an omniscient narrator who literally can't help sweating during the sultry moments. Like the characters in this play, by the end you will find yourself quite satisfied indeed.—Dan Schulman-Means, Associate Online Producer