(out of four)
By David N. Butterworth
Jay and Claire have sex–brutal, graphic, worldless sex–every
Wednesday afternoon at his place. Claire arrives, Jay invites her in, and the
two go at it in a "no MPAA rating" frenzy in the basement of his seedy
South London flat that's decorated with overflowing ashtrays and half empty beer
bottles.
As in the genre-defining Last Tango in Paris, no details are exchanged
between the protagonists, no names. This is a relationship based on need and
convenience, a relationship centered on the physical.
But when Claire fails to show at the appointed hour Wednesday week Jay, a
recently divorced former musician turned barkeep with two young and estranged
sons, is anxious, curious–why?–and the dynamic is changed forever. Jay
follows Claire and finds her a performer in an amateur production of The
Glass Menagerie in a local pub. During the intermission, Jay strikes up a
self-destructive conversation with a bar patron who turns out to be Claire's
doting husband (Mike Leigh regular Timothy Spall).
Based on stories by Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful
Laundrette, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid) and directed by Frenchman
Patrice Chéreau (Queen Margot; this is his first English-language film),
Intimacy is an earnest but ultimately pretentious production. You may be
shocked–the film is explicit–but you're more likely to be
turned off by the whole sordid and relentlessly depressing affair (I wanted to
take a shower on exiting the theater; almost every character has ingrained dirt
beneath their fingernails).
Mark Rylance (Angels and Insects) and Kerry Fox (Shallow Grave)
are both commendable as the couple grappling with issues and each other but
their bold performances–and the film's somber tone–are underdone by
the director's preoccupation with trying to explain everything through the
observations of peripheral characters–perhaps Intimacy would have
played better in French with English subtitles? Along with this unnecessary
translation, Intimacy features hardcore sex scenes, a discordant musical
score, and the intriguing (but otherwise unmemorable) casting of singer Marianne
Faithfull as one of Claire's drama students.
