Roman Polanski directs Peter Coyote, Emmanuelle Seigner and Hugh Grant in this erotic drama about two unhappily married couples on a cruise – one frigid, the other having done too much fucking with tragic consequences.

There’s a lot to unpack here. One might think that two hours of Emmanuelle Seigner in various states of nudity, brattish ecstasy and sex shop clothing could never get boring or grating… And yet Polanski seems hell bent on rubbing our faces into just how cold and uninviting sexual oblivion is. The whole thing is a pointed cruel joke. Some of the punchlines work. The near constant phallic symbols that dominate the foreground, the way the pairings end up when the roulette wheel stops (Yay for Kristin Scott Thomas!) and that cheesy Top 40 soundtrack. Yet the film teases inevitable tragedy and takes a long route to get to the unavoidable. This is why we don’t talk to other couples on holiday. Badly dated but not without its erotic charms and nasty pranks.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Venus In Furs (2013)

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