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"There's this sense of lines being crossable at any moment," says Toback. "There is no big deal to a guy and three girls f---ing in Central Park. There is no big deal to two women getting off on each other in a loft in the afternoon. There is no big deal to an Italian count who's 50 years older than a young woman having an odd sexual encounter with her. You believe it could happen in New York, more so than, say, Akron, Ohio."
All of this happens in When Will I Be Loved, which has a final Toronto International Film Festival screening today.
So what's a nice girl from Toronto doing starring in a movie like this, let alone playing the top sexual predator in this cauldron of tightly wound sociopathology?
"Challenging myself," says Neve Campbell sweetly. "It was a fun role to play," she adds of Vera, a rich daddy's-girl whose reckless sexual awakening and disdain for her wanna-be producer boyfriend Ford (Frederick Weller) explode almost simultaneously. Vera's acting-out achieves a grim climax after she receives an Indecent Proposal-like offer from a billionaire Italian count (Dominic Chianese, a.k.a. The Sopranos' Uncle Junior).
"It's hard to find roles like this that are very complex and interesting and different," the erstwhile Scream actress says. "I find it uninteresting to play characters similar to myself. It's great how unapologetic this film is; there's no attempt to make her look like a victim."
Unabashed in his presentation of sex as metaphor, Toback opens and closes When Will I Be Loved with languid scenes of Campbell showering -- at one point in the opening scene servicing herself with a Water-Pik.
Julia from Party Of Five is now offically dead.
"Well, that part was intimidating," Campbell admits of the shower scene. "But once you get in there and take your clothes off, there's not much to hide and you get over it fairly quickly.
"I didn't find the sex scenes hard to do. I didn't find them compromising. I understood what they were doing in the film and I understood that the film was about the power of sexuality. What was great about the way Jim handles those scenes is he gives you the option. He gets more out of his actors by allowing them to decide what they're willing to do." For example, she says the masturbation scene "was the result of a discussion we had."
Not that Campbell is about to take a left turn playing various forms of black widows.
"Basically I'm at the point in my life where I'm just looking for roles and actors and directors to be inspired by."
And that often means taking her career into her own hands. She produced and starred in Robert Altman's The Company, which was at last year's fest. She's shepherding A Private War, a screenplay written by her friend, stuntman Pete Antico about his struggle with Tourette's Syndrome. And she recently starred with her brother Christian Campbell and Alan Cumming in a Showtime TV movie musical of Reefer Madness (her younger brother Alex is also in the Toronto fest, acting opposite Sarah Polley in Siblings).
Next week, she starts filming Relative Strangers, in which she plays the wife-to-be of a guy who discovers a week before his wedding that he's adopted. "His real parents turn out to be Danny DeVito and Kathy Bates, who are trailer trash from the south.
"And comedy ensues. It's just pure silliness."
After she wraps, Campbell plans to look for a New York apartment, ending a decade in Los Angeles. "I've been in L.A. 10 years and I've never felt at home there. I realize I have to be there to an extent, but I don't have to live it."