Bitter Moon
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Movie Reviews of Bitter Moon
Movie Review: Different, But Really Good
Summary: 5 Stars
Oscar winning director Roman Polanski (Best Director, 'The Pianist') is the co-writer and director of this darkly humorous and very entertaining movie that has got more publicity (if any) from it's scenes with S&M. Too bad really, because this is one of the better films I've seen recently and probably my favorite film from Polanski (I've only seen The Ninth Gate & The Pianist though). Hugh Grant ('Love Actually') who usually bothers the living hell out of me plays Nigel, a British man who's on a cruise with his wife Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas) on their way to India in an attempt to rekindle their marital bliss. Usually when a movie takes place in one spot throughout the entire thing, like on a cruise ship, turns out to be crap. While this movie doesn't really take place on the cruise ship, everything we see is being told from a person on the ship. Anyway, Fiona and Nigel have a strange encounter with a woman in the bathroom; Then Nigel winds up running into her in the bar on the boat. The woman is Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner, 'The Ninth Gate' & 'Buddy Boy'), who Nigel clearly is attracted to. After failing to seduce her in the bar, he runs into a man named Oscar (Peter Coyote) who's confined to a wheelchair. Oscar talks about Mimi, who happens to be his wife, for a few moments before leading Nigel into his cabin where he begins talking about his relationship with Mimi. These stories are what take up much of the plot. Nigel insists that he doesn't care about Oscar's stories, but he goes back constantly to hear more...Then Oscar reveals that once he's done with the story, Nigel is free to do what he wishes with Mimi. The movie has two twists at the end, both of which are actually surprising. This movie has some really great nude scenes on behalf of Seigner and portrays some sexual things that hadn't really been approached in films. But this isn't an S&M movie, at all. There's not even a huge amount of sex in it. But, sticking to plot, the movie is never dull and it's smart and entertaining. Coyote gave an Oscar worthy performance and this one of Grant's better roles.
GRADE: A
Movie Review: Every element fits as they should in good art works
Summary: 5 Stars
A story within a story on a cruise ship - the surface story is of a `seven year itch'. A staid and respectable, childless British couple celebrating that volitile aniversary, are heedlessly advised (in regard to the husband anyway) by an Indian sage that children are better marital therapy than a cruise to India. Lust takes over the seemingly conservative Brit played perfectly by Hugh Grant and makes a fool of him. Yes this happens to men all the time.
On said cruise the British couple run into the sexy French siren and her crippled, older, storytelling husband who latches on to the Brit husband to tell his never-published autobiographical novel slash cautionary tale. And as for the interior story of the writer and his French obsession, it shows how`greediness' for hedonistic fantasy can lead to dark, sadististic or at least regrettable behavior. Suffice to say, everyone learns this lesson in their own way in the end.
A subtle theme here is the portrayal of the failed writer, who buys into fantasy too strongly and tries to make life imitate art until both his life and art fall short of any success, (this, like the lust in the male seven year itch, is another truism - failed artists often go too far into fantasy forgoing realism which ultimately causes frustration and failure) other than telling his story orally to one mere chump on a cruise who completely misses the point and is ready to cash in his perfectly respectable life for a brief scandalous trist in the very manner that made the cripple such an abomiable obnoxious loser. Much like the Siren song from Homer (who was also cruising the Mediteranian, wasn't he?)
Great score by Vangelis too, capturing romance and tragedy in one theme.
Movie Review: One of my all-time favorites/A No Spoiler Review
Summary: 5 Stars
I happen to be fairly picky, and I don't like a lot of movies. This, however, is definitely jockeying for position as my #1 all time favorite. I first saw it ten years ago, during a library movie night that I'd ran with a friend. We saw a preview for Bitter Moon during another movie and it looked fun so we rented it. When it ended, the whole audience sat in silence for about two minutes. We were frankly shocked by the ending...it was absolutely NOT what we had expected.
Bitter Moon is about a couple who go on a cruise to India to celebrate their seventh wedding anniversary. Almost immediately, they meet Mimi, who almost effortlessly weaves a spell around the husband, Nigel, played by Hugh Grant. He's restless and eager for diversion, a fact that doesn't escape the notice of Oscar, Mimi's wheelchair bound husband. Almost immediately, Oscar begans to play a game with the besotted husband, offering him Mimi if he'll only listen to their tale first. And Nigel is immediately sucked into their wild yet desolate and depraved world, with occasionally darkly hilarious and inevitably devastating consequences.
I thought the cast was incredible for this film. Emanuelle Seigner, playing Mimi, seems to get most of the criticism in the reviews. Admittedly she's no Meryl Streep but she brings a vulnerability to the role of Mimi, even when the vixen's at her worst. Hugh Grant is a bit stiff as Niles, but it suits the part well. Peter Coyote is a sneering fiesta of bitterness and hilarity, and Kristen Scott Thomas steals the show as a wife determined not to be played for a fool.
Make sure the kids aren't around and spare an evening for this one-it's worth it.
Movie Review: POLANSKI IS A MASTER STORYTELLER!
Summary: 5 Stars
I liked this film very much. Two couples: first -Grant & Thomas- who have nothing to say to each other (and try to hide their growing separation going on a cruise); the second -Coyote and Seigner- who have already gone through the peaks of love, desire, disappointment, separation, hate, contempt (and live stuck to each other).This is the premisse: two very different couples on different stages of their relationships.
The story is told (Coyote tells his story to Grant) in flashback and menages to affect the present relationship between Grant and his wife.
Polanski, without moralism or any judgemental objective, tell the story of how feelings can be transformed into many other things. How people can go over the top with what they feel.
By the time the film opened, some people said it was voyeuristic and exploitive. I don't agree with that. I think this film tells an adult and powerful story about Men, Women, their excesses and the pain they can cause. As you may imagine, the film, sometimes, gets violent and some sex scenes are quite bold (without being either vulgar nor porno-chic). To me, everything is in the right place.
I loved the ending. It was tragic and (yet) full of hope. The cinematography (as in all Polanski films) is great. The music by Vangelis is also great (I loved the scene when Coyote sends Seigner away). This film is obviously a work by a master storyteller/filmmaker. All the actors are peerless.
If only James Cameron had a story like this in front of his Titanic backdrop!! -(laughs)
Remember: this is a story about people and the severe changes their relationships can go through. See this film as an adult.
Movie Review: "Bitter Moon" - so horrifying......so hilarious
Summary: 5 Stars
...Roman Polanski. I saw "Bitter Moon" in 1994 at a St. Louis theatre, and I was rewarded with the sort of transcendent hilarity for which I had longed. The director's searing, sardonic tale of sexual perversity, jealousy and betrayal could have been a withering tale; instead, in Polanski's skilled hands, disillusionment proves subordinate to humor - moral judgmentalism gives way to merriment - at least on the part of this viewer. Taken literally (or autobiographically), of course "Moon" is distressing. If the storied director meant this treatise as a rational discourse on human sexuality, then it's as depressing in its own way as "Humanae Vitae" was decades earlier. At face value, both documents convey the same message: Beware the surrender of sex, because disaster will ensue. But Pope Paul wasn't funny - Polanski is exceedingly funny. The late pontiff purported moral absolutism - the Polish director claims no such omnipotence. My delight in this film was significant, exuding as it did from someone whose former rigidity was so obtuse that patent leather shoes were anathema. And when you've been in the psychic equivalent of a five-year labor, Polanski's intelligence and humor were akin to manna from the gods. Mercifully, those bleak days are now a thing of the past.....recovery was mine at last....but I have never forgotten my uproarious laughter in a small, darkened theatre in St. Louis nearly a decade ago. For the woman I was then, Polanski's genius was a rare jewel to behold.