Intimacy

Taken from two short stories from Hanif Kureshi, the one-time bad boy of British literature (long since usurped by the likes of Irvine Welsh), Intimacy is an inescapably dated waste of everyone’s time, for all the (very convenient) controversy surrounding the graphic nature of its blow-job scenes.

Jay (Rylance) and married Claire (Fox) meet in a grotty basement flat every Wednesday for anonymous sex in an attempt to successfully compartmentalise that part of their lives. The only variartion in their routine is who’s on top, but soon Jay finds himself curious about other aspects of Claire’s identity and begins to follow her. In no time, as with so many French movies before (though an English-language film, this is French in every other respect) the more dominant of the pairing (in this case Jay) finds himself becoming a victim, and is ultimately devastatd when, one fine Wednesday, Claire decides not to show up.

Cleverly calculated to grab as many column inches as possible, Intimacy is still hardly groundbreaking in the plot department, and might have escaped everbody’s notice if it hadn’t been for its ‘controversial’ ‘nature. It boasts several competent if melodramatic performances, most notably that of Timothy Spall as the cuckolded husband of the piece: but frequently, the assembled actors feel like characters adrift without a story. Meanwhile, the ‘groundbreaking’ sex scenes may have successfully ensured a place in Daily Mail editorials, but their grunting, grubby, ‘naturalistic’ style only renders Intimacy about as erotic as a porno involving several Aussie Rules teams.

Still, if nothing else, it should reassure audiences that they couldn’t possibly be having worse sex than this.