Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Bad Timing / A Sensual Obsession / USA / 1980

I’m a huge admirer of Roeg’s earlier films (though I remain unsure about The Man Who Fell to Earth), so I have no good excuse for the fact that I only saw this yesterday. It’s — as everybody else probably knows — a brilliantly incisive (pun! Freud! Argh!) portrait of a relationship, among a handful of great films that skewer modern sexuality while managing to direct its barbs at each gender equitably. (Eyes Wide Shut is another of these, a film that seems to share a lot with Roeg’s film: playing doctor, necrophilia, and the Vienna of the mind.)

Actually, it’s a pity I didn’t see this sooner, as I probably would have been slightly more receptive to the extremity of the relationship, especially as regards Art Garfunkel’s Alex Linden. Roeg handles the battle of the sexes with admirable equanimity, managing to take the somewhat tired truism that women are mercurial and mysterious and make it not only tangible, but sympathetic. (This is also thanks to Theresa Russell, who, from this vantage point, seems to look and behave exactly like Lindsay Lohan.) On the other hand, Garfunkel — who is idiosyncratic and in every way perfect here — is quite a reprehensible little shit, and I’m pleased to say that I no longer try masochistically to identify with such characters (though Cruise’s Dr. Bill still holds a place in both my heart and my private vision of hell).

But these are minor (and wholly subjective) qualms with an otherwise thoroughly excellent film, the equal of his earlier masterworks, Don’t Look Now and Walkabout, and I daresay their superior in form.

Here’s Rumsey’s full review, and you can also check out this interview with Roeg from 1980.

by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Criterion Collection DVD
10 Sep 2006 3:53 PM | Submit Comment