Overall Rating Awesome: 65% Worth A Look: 10% Average: 15% Pretty Bad: 0% Total Crap: 10% 1 review, 14 user ratings

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Bitter Moon

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by Rob Gonsalves

"So this is love?"

Roman Polanski’s best and darkest movie since 'Chinatown' is a fascinatingly ugly study of a relationship gone sour.

Oscar (Peter Coyote), a hack writer living in Paris, falls in love with beautiful Mimi (Emmanuelle Seignert), a dancer and waitress. Their life together is bliss until they develop a taste for kinky sex, which reaches its absurd nadir when Oscar wears a pig mask and wriggles around the floor half-naked. Soon the couple fall out of love and into hate — and find they need each other more than ever.

This is all told in flashback by the wheelchair-bound Oscar on a cruise to India; his captive audience is Nigel (Hugh Grant), a proper Englishman happily married to Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas). At first repelled by Oscar’s stories, Nigel becomes mesmerized by Mimi, while Oscar grooms him as her new lover. Decidedly not a date movie, it’s a typically Polanskian look at love and obsession, buoyed by a riveting performance by Coyote.

Watch it back to back with 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' (also starring Grant and Scott Thomas) for the full effect.

link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=3828&reviewer=416
originally posted: 04/04/07 12:48:03

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User Comments

6/30/20 The Big D. BORING--some guy talks about his stormy marriage. (Sorry, Roman; I loved THE NINTH GATE.) 1 stars

8/20/18 Louise Couldn't really get into it. 3 stars

3/19/18 Tinkerbell Gripping movie with surprising ending 4 stars

5/26/16 Tinkerbell clumsy, uptight, married Grant develops huge crush on gorgeous Seigner, another man's wife 5 stars

11/26/10 Sia Shar A film that changed my life.positive effect of course.after cinema paradiso,it's my second 5 stars

11/23/10 mr.mike My world was not rocked. 3 stars

12/27/08 lovesick one of the best films about a relationship, ever. an absolute must-see movie.watch it! 5 stars

7/14/08 stereolabb Gets better with age. Underappreciated. A classic film...one of the best of the 90s. 5 stars

4/05/07 Ole Man Bourbon Sick stuff 4 stars

1/01/06 Jay_kar2004 excellent for nudity 5 stars

1/01/06 Jay_kar2004 excellent for nudity 5 stars

4/18/05 George R-Scott Repellent. The direst movie I've seen in ages. Truly vile. Stockard what were u thinking??! 1 stars

2/20/04 Pinkline Jones Brilliantly, weird, mix of pathos - Polanski the Master 5 stars

11/29/03 john interssting subject - involving funny and disturbing at the same time but ultimately boring 3 stars

IF YOU'VE SEEN THIS FILM, RATE IT!
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USA 02-Apr-1994 (R) UK N/A Australia N/A

Directed by Roman Polanski Written by Gérard Brach John Brownjohn Cast Hugh Grant Kristin Scott Thomas Emmanuelle Seigner Peter Coyote Victor Banerjee Stockard Channing

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