Throwback Thursday: A Lesser-Known Christina Ricci Movie

A tale of sex addiction and redemption that you’ve probably never seen…..

Hey Fleshbot fans! I’m bringing you a little something different here on this Throwback Thursday. Most people in my Xennial generation know Christina Ricci because she grew up on the silver screen along with us. Like anyone who got famous young, once she became an adult, she began taking on roles that solidified her status as a serious actress and one such film is Black Snake Moan (2006), in which she plays opposite Samuel L. (Motherfucking) Jackson. This film carries lots of trigger warnings for sexual violence, and addiction. Please take care of yourself!

The film begins in Mississippi with Ricci’s character Rae, who is an abuse survivor and an actual nymphomaniac, making yet another bad decision around the kind of garbage people she associates with. Whenever her boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) is away serving in the National Guard, Rae’s drug and sex addictions rear their ugly heads. Through a sequence of events, Rae ends up almost naked on the side of the road and left for dead. Enter Lazarus (Jackson), an aging blues musician whose life kind of sounds like a blues song-- his wife cheated with his brother, got pregnant, and had an abortion. Tough break. Both of these characters have hit rock bottom in different ways, but Lazarus, a devout Christian, is determined to save Rae, even if it involves a lot of tough love, such as putting her on a long chain attached to the radiator so she doesn’t leave his house and get into more trouble. The unlikely bond that they form is really the crux of the film.

The poster and other forms of promotion for Black Snake Moan really paint quite a different and kinda gross story about what the movie is really about. The poster looks like the cover of a pulp novel with Rae on her chain kneeling and Lazarus kind of looming over her as if sexually dominating her and fetishizing the interracial nature of their relationship to boot, but these characters don’t interact sexually at all. The promotion may have been a factor contributing to why Black Snake Moan was basically a box office bomb. I will not spoil the ending, but the characters form a very intimate friendship that really does save both of their lives. This film isn’t what you’d normally classify as wholesome fare, but give it a try, it might surprise you! Also, it has an excellent soundtrack and you get to hear Samuel L. Jackson singing. What more could you ask?

Black Snake Moan is available (at press time) for free streaming on PlutoTV and also on Paramount+ for subscribers.