First, I should say that I'm a big Roger Rees fan, which is why I sat all the way through the movie. I thought this film would be about a therapist who was curious about BDSM who goes to a professional dominatrix and winds up falling in love with her as he discovers his true sexuality. But instead this is a confused mess about a kinky therapist who is already involved with a professional dominatrix whom his apparently hip wife has been letting him see for over 2-1/2 years. The characters don't change and no one learns anything. It's just a mess of terrible acting, appalling dialog and a scrambled narration that tries to play leapfrog with the time line to somehow explain who these people are.
In the movie I would have liked to have seen, the Rees' character would ultimately have had to confront whether he could be true to his sexuality and yet stay in his marriage. This is a very real issue that affects hearts and lives every day. Instead, Rees' character is this sniveling, sneaky bastard who takes advantage of his generous, open-minded wife as soon as she leaves the city to write. Any kinky guy who has that kind of good situation going would think twice -- hell, THREE times at least -- before jeopardizing it. Yet Werthman doesn't have his characters reflect at all.
But then, Werthman couldn't possibly have written the film I was expecting to see because, from the character dialog alone, it's clear he doesn't know anything about BDSM psychology or sexuality. It's like he visited a couple of dungeons, went to a butt-wiggling bondage club to eyeball a spanking scene, and then dove into writing the script, ignoring the vast number of informative, well-written books on the subject. The worst part was that he failed to convey that people who practice BDSM are very much aware of the intimacy issues and tend to be very good communicators since they know that what they're doing is potentially dangerous, both physically and emotionally. Werthman had a chance to make a really interesting, insightful film plucked from a complex world. Instead, he blew it.
God, I hope Roger Rees can make a decent film before he dies. I hated seeing his talent wasted on this.
In the movie I would have liked to have seen, the Rees' character would ultimately have had to confront whether he could be true to his sexuality and yet stay in his marriage. This is a very real issue that affects hearts and lives every day. Instead, Rees' character is this sniveling, sneaky bastard who takes advantage of his generous, open-minded wife as soon as she leaves the city to write. Any kinky guy who has that kind of good situation going would think twice -- hell, THREE times at least -- before jeopardizing it. Yet Werthman doesn't have his characters reflect at all.
But then, Werthman couldn't possibly have written the film I was expecting to see because, from the character dialog alone, it's clear he doesn't know anything about BDSM psychology or sexuality. It's like he visited a couple of dungeons, went to a butt-wiggling bondage club to eyeball a spanking scene, and then dove into writing the script, ignoring the vast number of informative, well-written books on the subject. The worst part was that he failed to convey that people who practice BDSM are very much aware of the intimacy issues and tend to be very good communicators since they know that what they're doing is potentially dangerous, both physically and emotionally. Werthman had a chance to make a really interesting, insightful film plucked from a complex world. Instead, he blew it.
God, I hope Roger Rees can make a decent film before he dies. I hated seeing his talent wasted on this.