The oddly symbiotic relationship between a British hood hiding out from his cronies and a young, retired pop singer living with his female playthings in a decadent mansion. Cinematographer extraordinaire Nicolas Roeg also served as director (with assist from screenwriter Donald Cammell, who also co-produced); Roeg is mad about digging below the surface to see how things tick, but what's on the surface should be important to him as well and it isn't. The conversations between the two protagonists are amplified with visual minutiae, but is this to keep our attention or to distract it? There's a menacing sexual undercurrent bubbling under the film, but nothing too dangerous comes of this (we see flashes of nudity but no actual fornication). Mick Jagger's Turner is described as 'weird' and 'kinky', yet--aside from his androgynous garb and penchant for pouting in close-up like an old-time movie star--we don't sense this (the follies of his sexual appetite are somewhat muted). James Fox's gangster offers a bit more punch than Jagger's celebrity, however both perform under their own intricately stylized bell jar. We hear and see action through the glass but are intrinsically cut off from it. ** from ****
Review of Performance
