Intimacy (2001)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Excellent, smart action film.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Intimacy (2001) was co-written and directed by Patrice Chéreau. The movie stars Mark Rylance as Jay, the head barman at a club. Somehow, he has met Claire, played by Kerry Fox. To Jay's surprise, Claire reappears every Wednesday at his apartment to have sex with him. (That's the only way to phrase it. They don't talk, and there's no foreplay. They just tear their clothes off and go at it.) There's plenty of nude scenes of both Fox and Rylance. However, it's not really erotic, because the apartment is so dirty and unkempt that all I could think of was "it's disgusting."Matters would have apparently continued along in this way, except that Jay wants to know more about Claire. He manages to track her down to a pub/theater, where she's starring in "The Glass Menagerie." This brings him into contact with Andy, Claire's husband, played brilliantly by Timothy Spall. The plot really begins at this point, and I will carefully avoid explaining what happens next. I won't avoid saying that the plot appeared contrived and, basically, ridiculous. I wasn't familiar with the work of Kerry Fox, but she's an excellent actor. Rylance and Spall are great actors. It's hard to understand just what went wrong with this film. Some reviewers have suggested that director could have made a better movie in France than in England. Maybe we in the English-speaking world think that this bizarre plots works better if the actors are smoking Gauloises and drinking wine, rather than smoking Mayfairs and drinking ale.If you really want to see this movie, you'll have to decide whether you want to see all the sex (unrated version) or just the suggestion of sex (R-rated version). The movie has no real outdoor scenes, so it will work as well on DVD (which is how we saw it) as it will on the large screen. This isn't a great movie for anyone. If you want porn, buy porn. If you want narrative drama, buy narrative drama. Intimacy promises both, and gives you neither.

I expected much more from "Intimacy." I remember when it first came out in 2001 and got a lot of bad reviews from the critics, but at first I thought it was probably just because they couldn't handle the (allegedly) "explicit" content matter. I was wrong: it really is a mediocre movie.The main problem is that we just don't care about the characters at all, I suppose. This could be compensated for by a strong director or interesting script, but it has neither. It's an independent film and the standards of film-making are simply just OK.Not all great low-budget films have likable characters but when you have one so ugly, it helps to make up for it by at least having characters we can relate to. (Good example: "The Panic in Needle Park." You feel like yelling at the characters, but you care for them because you can relate to their daily struggles -- lack of food, employment, money, etc. -- anyone who's been down on luck before can understand.) But "Intimacy" isn't the same. It's about a family guy who dumps his wife and kids and becomes a bartender at a London pub. He meets an anonymous woman for sex every week in a dirty apartment in a bad area.The movie doesn't work as an art-house experiment because it's neither artsy nor experimental. It pretends to be by showcasing those famous "lingering" shots that's become really tiring since every indie filmmaker decided it was a sign of talent and originality. It's not experimental because it follows the guidelines in terms of direction, cinematography and acting. It's not erotic because the sex scenes are dull and Kerry Fox is, to be totally honest, an ugly woman. (Which is the point - it makes the story more realistic - but all the same it also makes it un-erotic.) I think women would probably say the same about the male lead - and I hate to be the first person to point it out, but in regards to the infamous "real" sex scenes in the film... he's about as "big" as a blade of grass, and Kerry Fox is about as stimulating to watch as bumer-to-bumper traffic.It's not deep because it's so basic - we get to see the lack of morality in the leading characters. Well whoop-dee-do, so what? You're likely to find much better films out there than this. In terms of independent cinema it's a big let-down because it seems like any major Hollywood film hiding underneath the mold of something it isn't. The story isn't anything special and has been done before, the acting is just so-so, the "erotic imagery" isn't erotic, the level of entertainment is about zilch.All in all it comes across as a cheap imitator of "Last Tango in Paris," which is about a hundred times better and a much more prominent example of having unlikable characters in a movie that we can still feel a connection for.

Intimacy's title is an ironic joke; this is a movie about the lack of intimacy. Intimacy is supplied entirely through sex by characters who are unable to deal with it in their regular lives. Intelligent and absorbing, Intimacy is also quite depressing. Not sad, not tragic, just dispiriting. Jay is a bitter man who is doing his best to hold the world at arms length, yet his desire for something more than his superficial existence is what propels the actions of the movie. He is unable to connect with other people, but then, that seems to be true of almost everyone in the film, and the movie reeks of desperation.That doesn't sound like any fun at all, and Intimacy is not a good time movie. And it's not a weepy tragedy either, it's a cold, clinical film about existential loneliness. It is hard going but worth it.

With it's premise of anonymous sex and emotionally distant characters this in some ways resembles a cross between "Last Tango in Paris" and the recent "Closer" but the manner in which the material is handled fails to come even remotely close to those superior films. Story is about Jay (Mark Rylance) who's a divorced father of two boys and now is head bartender in a popular English pub. Every Wednesday afternoon he meets Claire (Kerry Fox) and the two of them have sex but do not discuss with each other who the other person is.*****SPOILER ALERT***** Claire stops coming by on Wednesdays and Jay starts to follow her around and discovers that she's an amateur actress working in a play in the back of a pub. Jay enters the establishment and views the play and actually meets Claire's husband Andy (Timothy Spall) and starts a friendship with him but after a few visits it becomes apparent to Andy what is going on between them.Patrice Chereau is an actor/director/writer and has worked a good deal in the theater and there are several scenes that take place with the actors that appear could have fit well in a stage production. The story takes an angry approach to it's characters as their portrayed as people who just cannot commit completely emotionally and while as interesting as that is it's hard to feel one way or another for those involved. In "Closer" we don't feel remorse but we do understand (and feel) their pain and anger but here the story tries so hard for the viewer to know how distant these people are that it ultimately becomes impossible to have one feeling or another. Spliced into this film are some pretty good performances and while Rylance shows he can carry a picture it's the always reliable Fox that is easier to identify with. Arguably the best performance comes from Spall (Secrets and Lies) who shows us a character that has good instincts but after all the years of marriage finds out that his wife is terribly unhappy. Chereau presents us with characters that had real potential but the script fails in terms of allowing the viewer to be interested in their struggles.