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There is an interesting story here, but the movie circles it at a distance.
For all the sex and vicious psychological game-playing, Chereau's movie is strangely forgettable.
Its somber ruminations on passion and desire, marriage and aloneness, resonate with unmistakable force.
It does get at the messy totalitarianism of uninvited emotions, and in that sense, it's haunting.
Chereau ... creates a wonderful minor-chord symphony.
Despite the efforts of Kureishi, Chereau and co-screenwriter Anne-Louise Trividic to make us believe in its realism. Toward the end, there are too many speeches.
Chereau's first English-speaking feature, based on Hanif Kureishi's stories, is a bold, full-frontal (literally) exploration of the mysteries of male and female sexual desire. As such, the audacious film will divide film critics and get NC-17 rating
Pulsates with desperate, miserable passion.
It's ironic that a film exploring the mysteries of how people succeed and fail to connect with each other then fails to really connect with its audience.
I'm sure Chereau meant this to be a searing portrait of psychic distance, and it certainly is bleak. What it is not, unfortunately, is riveting cinema.
It's a brave art film only because of its porno sex scenes, but it is not necessarily a perceptive one.
It's a frighteningly realistic look at completely passionless sex, and Fox and Rylance both do a good job of making us uncomfortable as we watch.
Rylance and Fox, fine actors, bravely grapple through some astonishingly convincing copulation (did they or didn't they?), and even more bravely struggle with Chereau's unspeakable lines.
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