Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

paid in full This movie is heavy. It would have a 10/10 from me but I think they ran out of gas toward the end... Still a great movie nevertheless. The dialogue and scenes are a great back and forth. Without spoiling the movie I can say that all actors are strong. The fact that some scenes take place in a foreign country ENHANCES the quality of the movie ( which is not always easy to do.) Overall a great drama/romance movie.

Fun90mighty90 When I saw the film "Bitter Moon", I did not think the film would be what it was. Throughout the film, you follow a story told by a paraplegic passenger on a cruise ship who shares his life and his past with another young married man. The handicapped gentlemen reveals to this young man why the decisions and choices that he has made in the past has cost him the ability to walk and why he is in a relationship with a woman younger than himself. As you follow the story, which starts off rather romantically, it eventually becomes more complicated as the relationship between him and his partner, in the story, become complicated in the way that they treat each other. In the beginning of their relationship, he is a confident, good looking and talented man who wants to make the most of his life and of his youth. When he meets a young woman who is beautiful, foreign and intelligent, the relationship begins to change over time after they begin to engage in sexual games and habits that eventually warp their perceptions on each other and on themselves. They originally intended to make their sexual relationship more fun and so they encourage each other to satisfy each other in way's, that at first, seem like fun, but when the games start to become more deadly, the relationship starts to strain. After being together a while, he begins to lose interest in her and she begins to feel like an after thought. As time goes by, his interest turns to other women and she begins to feel unimportant to him and so she does her best to keep his interest by doing things that just push him further away. This desperation on her behalf, causes his arrogance, because she will literally do anything for him, to take over him and he starts to become mentally and physically abusive towards her. The relationship get's worse and worse, until eventually. his reckless behavior and his attitude which is to take from life and not give anything back, causes him to drunkenly step in front of a vehicle. After breaking his leg, the woman he has treated appallingly, takes it upon herself to look after him, turning the tables, and now, she is in control of the relationship, whereas before, he was in control. The injury leaves him vulnerable and the woman decides to remind him of how badly he has treated her. She does everything he did to her, which included, inviting random people back to their apartment, treating him with little respect and deliberately showing him that she could get any man she wanted, all in an attempt to get revenge and to hurt him the way he hurt her. After the battle in the relationship had subsided and they realized that they needed each other, they get married and take a vacation on a cruise ship where he manages to meet a man who is in a relationship where he is bored, finding life predictable and is hiding with his wife behind a facade of snobbery and innocence when actually, he is as sexually frustrated and as open minded, as the man telling the story. The end of the story left me thinking that the two relationships are so different and yet, so similar. They have two different approaches with dealing with their relationship and how they convey it to others day to day, however, behind closed doors, they are experimental, open minded and want to enjoy themselves as best they can. Just when the man hearing the story begins to feel his prudish wife is never going to satisfy his hidden sexual frustration, he finds out that his wife is suffering the exact same mental situation, thinking that he would never satisfy her sexual frustration. Society has caused human beings to hide their animal instincts, which are in all of us, but we do this to make each other more comfortable in social interactions. Hiding our inner interests causes us to get creative and this film shows exactly that, in a relationship that appeared, on the face of it, to be perfect! A really clever film that takes an issue that probably effects many marriages and relationships. I would definitely recommend watching it if you're open minded and don't mind a story that does not "sugar coat" anything when it comes to sexual fetishes.

Vivekmaru45 Roman Polanski is one of my favorite directors. I Have seen many of his films: The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967), Frantic (1988), Death and the Maiden (1994) and The Ninth Gate (1999).Every one of his films has a different style of direction. You are in for a different treat each time. This film deals with the topic of love at first sight, which then later deals with sexual exploration and eventually into perversion and degradation.The film is told in flashback narrative by Oscar Benton(Peter Coyote), an American living in Paris, who falls in love with a French woman called Mimi(Emmanuelle Seigner). Oscars tells this strange story of bondage, sadomasochism and voyeurism to Nigel Dobson(Hugh Grant) who is on a Cruise holiday with his wife Fiona(Kristen Scott Thomas).Nigel is gradually drawn into sexual intrigue by Oscar and he wants to secretly make love with Mimi at any given opportunity. He does not reveal this to his wife and to Oscar.I will not give away any more of the plot. You will have to see the film to find out what happens next.The casting, acting and cinematography is superb. The background music is adequate to the film. Roman Polanski is in full command of the film till the conclusion. This is an adults only film and I would not recommend it to persons under the age of 18.Similar themed films you will enjoy: Jagged Edge 1985, Fatal Attraction 1987, Basic Instinct 1992, Sliver 1993.

chazz46-2 Much has been well described ad nauseum about the plot, music, background, character flaws, etc. of Bitter Moon. Besides all of these truths, there is something else that exists, namely the powerful feminine impact that Mimi portrayed to the extent that it seemed far too real to be left encased in the fantasy realm of movie art. Her character part as well as her actual beauty, dancing talent, and sexuality is the exponent of femininity, grace, and desirability. Men remain tortured by their obsession with everything that Mimi portrayed in the film. Not unlike Jean Seberg in Lilith, whose character mesmerized, beguiled, and commandeered most of those who ran across her path, Mimi had that quality which likewise reaches out beyond the movie itself to ensnare the hearts of all men. Not everyone gets it, but it is plain to see from galleries of fan mail to Emmanuelle Seigner, this one movie part seems to have entrenched her immortality into many men's souls. This gut-wrenching obsession with the magical combination of a certain actress coupled to a script and director brings forth restless insomnia for appreciative men as Seigner has done here. If Jean Seberg did not bring such an obsession, then consider Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Or try Kim Novack in Bell Book and Candle. These are a few of the magical concoctions of film art where the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. Oscar's character even tries to elevate the beauty and desirability of the less stunning Fiona's character when he says, "But I find your own brand of beauty more subtle.....as that inimitably British quality......a kind of reticence that hints of untapped potentiality." Even Shakespeare, much less Oscar, cannot compensate with words for those who appear limited in physical beauty and sensuousness, while Seigner's beauty portrays endless potential for being tapped, you might say. And Polanski's product leads to a powerful representation of man's instinct and obsession for beauty, sensuousness, and the ideal everyman's woman. We see that Oscar, when given this rare opportunity in the eyes of the average man, totally blows it and ruins a most ideal relationship. Unfortunately, knowing Polanski's historical tragedies, I would think that he is telling us that we are probably no better than Oscar when it comes to successfully nurturing the ideal relationship. ChazzN