... and no I am not talking about the characters in the film, I am talking about what happens when an A-list director "falls in love" with the idea of doing a sexually explicit film.
I want to be clear about this and I think the data will bear me out. Make a list of all the films in the last 100 years by A-list directors who felt confident they could infringe on territory formerly occupied only by the porn industry and still prevail with a hit film...? Are you done? I will save you time. I did the list myself. And the answer is none, zero, zip, nada.
Just like there are in the porn industry a handful of directors who constantly try to push the boundaries of their craft into the mainstream (which almost always means soft light and lots of white sheets, films that most resemble a commercial for TIDE) Noe, a brilliant artiste (Irreversible and Enter the Void were both brilliant) tried to push the envelope .. and ended up with junk mail.
Sure, if you are determined to see a silk purse where others are seeing a sow's ear, you could pretend that this film has a great deal to say about men's expectations about love and marriage.
But this is a review just between the writer and the reader, and we respect each other too much to lie. So I will be clear -- Noe went where angels fear to tread. And ended up with a film that, for posterity, is simply not going to make his A-reel.
