A psychiatrist, living in Vienna, enters a torrid relationship with a married woman. When she ends up in the hospital from an overdose, an inspector becomes set on discovering the demise of their affair.
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Title: Bad Timing/A Sensual Obsession (1980)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Art Garfunkel | ... | Alex Linden | |
| Theresa Russell | ... | Milena Flaherty | |
| Harvey Keitel | ... | Inspector Netusil | |
| Denholm Elliott | ... | Stefan Vognic | |
| Daniel Massey | ... | Foppish Man | |
| Dana Gillespie | ... | Amy Miller | |
| William Hootkins | ... | Col. Taylor | |
| Eugene Lipinski | ... | Hospital Policeman | |
| George Roubicek | ... | Policeman #1 | |
 |
Stefan Gryff | ... | Policeman #2 |
|
|
Sevilla Delofski | ... | Czech Receptionist |
|
|
Robert Walker | ... | Konrad |
| Gertan Klauber | ... | Ambulance Man | |
| Ania Marson | ... | Dr. Schneider | |
|
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Lex van Delden | ... | Young Doctor |
The setting is Vienna. A young American woman is brought to a hospital after overdosing on pills, apparently in a suicide attempt. A police detective suspects foul play on the part of her lover, an American psychology professor. As doctors try to save her life, the detective interrogates the professor, and through flashbacks we see the events leading up to the woman's overdose; her stormy and intensely sexual relationship with the professor, her heavy drinking and numerous affairs, and her estrangement from her Czech husband. A darkly erotic study of several rather unsympathetic characters. Written by Marty Cassady <martyc@bev.net>
I've just returned after seeing this movie and it has messed your dude up. This was my life for the two years I spent with my Milena. The parallels are uncanny. I am kind of nerdy just like Garfunkel...same pathetic physique...but like Garfunkel I have a certain magnetism. Garfunkel's not exactly a wimp...there's some steel in his gaze. My Milena was just as magnetic and beautiful as Theresa Russell...really. My Milena also lived in a sordid, messy, sexy aerie with a big bed, overfull ashtrays, half-read books everywhere. The alcohol? Check. The infidelity? Check. The suicide attempts? Check. The much older other man? Check. The sleazy, disgusting party friends? Check. The late-night drunk calls that may or may not have been suicide attempts? Check. The intense sex that regularly turned into something twisted? Check. Just like Garfunkel I was hooked...just like Garfunkel I had a "together" life...my God, I even study psychoanalysis...and just like Garfunkel there was more than a hint of bad faith in the togetherness I opposed to my Milena's sloppiness. Like Garfunkel, the idea that Milena had other lovers made me crazy...like Theresa Russell, my Milena needed secrets...lies...she couldn't breathe without her lies and secrets.
The scene where she sets Garfunkel up with her fake suicide attempt only to loose the full force of her hysterical cruelty on him...check...down to the blows and the broken bottles...and it marked the moment our love died, even if things dribbled on for a while after that.
Anyway...you get the picture. You know a movie is good when it shows you things about YOUR OWN life that you hadn't noticed before. That's the secret of a great movie: you feel like it's talking to you and to you alone. I have a feeling I'm not the only person who walked out of the cinema feeling like he had just seen his own life on the screen. Almost everything is perfect. This film is even more disturbing than DON'T LOOK NOW. That is saying a lot. The one wrong note for me was Harvey Keitel. I liked the contrast of his healthy virility with Garfunkel's nerdiness...but Keitel got something wrong. Not sure what...it was certainly a tricky role, and he wasn't exactly bad, but something was wrong.