Fans of Alan Rickman should NOT see this film. The script is choppy and includes many completly random scenes. No wonder this was in the 5 dollar bin at my local Walmart. As a Rickman fan, I think he could have done so much better.
shareRubbish! This film is extremely thought provoking and well acted. I don't know anyone that has watched it and has found it an extremely haunting film that has stayed with them long after the actual viewing.
shareI recently rented this and liked it, though it could've had more substance. I would like to see more incest films...
shareI thought this was pretty good and very gripping, except for the ending. Granted the dialogue was ridiculous in some parts but Clive Owen and Alan Rickman were fabulous. Owen kept the tension and obsessive quality consistently throughout. The sister drove me nuts because she was so obviously manipulative. The scene where Clive breaks down while they were having tea was gut wrenching (he's quite intense even so early in his career). But then the ending was so silly, as if they can walk away as if nothing happened.
shareexample of this ridiculous dialogue??
and why couldn't they walk away at the end?? they were good friends
and the 2 were brother and sister. I know of personally people
that have been caught cheating and ended up a parties still
were good friends. You need to give good people with good
character the credit they deserve.
incest being in the mix doesnt matter.
http://www.facebook.com/mike.d.keith?ref=profile
Interesting that it was in the $5 bin when their website has it listed for the $20 range.
shareRickman really screwed up one of his lines I had to actually rewind it to make sure I heard what I heard. Did anyone catch that? But yea the plot sounds very promising, but this film was horribly crafted. Great idea, wrong people to do the job (with the exception of Clive Owen.)
shareEither way, Clive Owen was hot.
sharei havent seen it but it looks good....
shareIf you're a Clive Owen fan, you have to see this one!
shareAGREED! Clive is hot, and while this movie just doesn't show enough of his good acting, at least you get to see him completely naked, only for not long enough:(
I am a Clive fan, and do like his acting a lot, aside from his amazing looks and lovely personality, blah blah blah. I read that this movie sucked before I watched it, but I Netflixed it honestly, just to see 'is ass. And, yep it sucked as a movie, but it was worth it:) And, actually I thought he was the best actor in the movie, way better than Saskia and Alan. (Rickman is a great actor, but I just think this was not a good role for him). Anyway----
If you take away the bad acting (mostly by Saskia) and the annoying and distracting character Alan Rickman plays, and then pretend Saskia isn't his sister, the movie is pretty hot. Clive has this ability to generate, escalate, and passionately break sexual tension in his movies. He executes this flawlessly, sometimes even with a simple facial expression. While that is not the only quality I like about his acting, it certaintly is wonderful :) ANYWAY----
So ladies, just see the movie for the P&A, if anything.
"Give me a child until he is 7, and I will give you the man."
"the annoying and distracting character Alan Rickman plays"
Eh? Yes, it's annoying and distracting if all you want to do is stay in that incestuous relationship with Reeves and Owen. But Rickman's character is there to stop you doing that, to remind you the norms exist for a reason, and to show you the destructive elements of their relationship. The final scenes where peace is reached would not work without Rickman, and without Rickman's character, you could only see the relationship's obsessiveness escalating to tragedy.
OK, the sex helps sell this movie, but there's a lot more in it.
This movie is excellent, and is the closest thing to a "good" incest movie as we are ever likely to get. For the very same reason I loved Secretary (with James Spader) I love this movie, although this movie does not go to the lengths that Secretary does. The great thing about Secretary was, it showed two people who were into spanking, and at the end they still liked spanking, they were happy, and no one went insane. The studio almost drove the director insane (Steven Shainberg) because they kept going, "Ok, but when does she get counseling and then get free of her desire for spanking?" He kept saying, "NEVER, she loves it, he loves it, they're happy and no one NEEDS to get counseling". They just couldn't get the fact that, although maybe they (and a lot of others) could not understand why someone would loved to be spanked, some people love it and they are quite happy in life, thank you very much. Ok, incest is different than spanking, because spanking isn't illegal and doesn't lead to babies with two heads, but you get my meaning. I just wish someone would break the mold and make an incest movie that embraced the choice two ADULTS make to do this. The movie doesn't need to justify it, or try to make it ok in our eyes, it just needs to tell the story of two people who chose that and are happy, at least for whenever they are doing it, because THAT HAPPENS and it would be something new for a change.
How many, many times have we seen movies with incest where: a) there is no incest (it is simply implied) b) there is incest (some quick flashback) and everyone goes insane c) the incest is told by the devastated victim (a daughter and such)? About a zillion times, right? Well, wouldn't it be nice if just once we got the angle that is given in this film? That is, WHY incest happens? Why sometimes it happens and everyone doesn't go insane!
Jude was another film that treated the subject with incredible tenderness and beauty, until about 2/3 through and then the bottom drops out of our world.
The point is this, we see movies to watch and experience stuff that we: a) cannot do in real life b) shouldn't do in real life c) cannot afford to do in real life d) don't want to do in real life. So why can't SOMEONE make a sensitive, tender, romantic, incest movie? Because you know it happens. There was a story in the news about three years ago about two people who got engaged and then found out that they were long-lost brother and sister! What did they do? They got MARRIED! And these weren't back-woods Arkansas folk (no insult to my neighbors to the Northeast), these people were professional urbanites.
Why do we like incest movies? Well, that's not the correct term. Why do we find the topic of incest — in *movies* — titillating? Because it's taboo, and it's not REAL, and so we can allow ourselves to fantasize about something bad without anyone really getting hurt. Now, is incest in real life titillating, or erotic? NO, NO, NO! In real life it is sad, and damaging and gross. But, on film, if done right, it can be... interesting.
So, I'm still waiting for someone, anyone, to make a romantic, sensual incest movie, that isn't gross and everyone doesn't go insane. I think I'm gonna have a very long wait.
"...nothing is left of me, each time I see her..." - Catullus
Agree with you totally. This was an engrossing movie, very well acted, with a very sensual, very sexy Clive Owen (and not only when he was naked in a some scenes). So was "Natalie" -very real, very sexy and sensual.
It would be nice to see a "sequel" where they do what he proposed, i. e. go to Mexico and live there together.
I rented this movie specifically for the incest theme. I didn’t buy it for one second that the two were brother and sister. They looked nothing alike. I did like the nudity and the sex scenes between the brother and sister, but it did not make me feel for the characters. It was not sensual enough to make me develop feelings for them. They just showed them getting straight into bed and having sex. It was not erotic. It would have been better if they showed them develop their feelings from the beginning, and have their relationship grow. It also would have been better if the two of them ran away and got married. They would have been happy.
I too would like to see a sensual movie about incest between two relatives: brother-sister, mother-son, father-daughter, cousin-cousin, etc. One that makes you feel for the characters and not forbid their relationship.
You mention that you want to see a good, sensual movie about incest. Since I don’t see that happening anytime soon, I have an alternative for those of you who want sensual incest. Go to www.literotica.com/stories and click on "Incest/Taboo". There you will find some of the hottest, most romantic, most erotic, most sensual incest stories ever written. It lets you use your imagination to picture two beautiful people (or anyone you want for that matter) engaging in forbidden love. That's what I like about reading incest stories; imagining two attractive people engaging in incest. But in real life incest, it probably involves hillbillies and slack-jawed yokels. That is not the kind of incest I like. That kind of incest grosses me out. Reading these stories made me believe that incest should not be illegal if it is mutual between the two people. If incest was really like the way it is in these stories, it would truly be beautiful.
Read these stories with an open mind and tell me what you think.
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Hi,
For long time I'm eager to see this film.
Someone from europe can make a copy from DVD R2 ?
My email: [email protected]
Thanks
Why don't you just go to http://www.play.com and buy a copy, or buy one from your local DVD store, it is easy enough to buy.
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It can be pretty insightful thinking about Richard's obsession with Natalie even without the context of incest. Guys like him end up murdering their wives/girlfriends in a jealous rage because they cannot deal with rejection. Regardless of how much in the wrong Natalie was, it never explains or excuses Richard's psychotic outbursts.
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Fans of movies period should not see this movie. I am a HUGE Clive Owen fan, and therefore was very interested in seeing this movie. I thought the script was an absolute joke, I really felt sorry for the actors, especially in most of the scenes between Owen/Reeves...."no don't"..."okay, this just happened" were repeated several times in several scenes. I'm not a writer by any means, but I think I could've done a better job with dialogue.
of course, on the plus side, there is always Clive's bum :)
This movie is an atrocious piece of nonsensical rubbish. Awful B-list actors (bar Alan Rickman) plodding their way through a lifeless script.
I recommend 'The Cement Garden' as a far more intelligent challenging film about incest.
Haha, Clive Owens and Saskia Reeves are "awful b-list actors"?! Uh, wrong! This is an excellent movie about *obsession* and misdirected desire. Anyone who thinks this script was "lifeless" is simply wrong, in my opinion.
The Cement Garden is NOT about incest, it is about the tragic consequences of children left alone after the death of their mother. The incest in that movie is simply about the two leads attempting to become "mom and dad" for the younger children. It, however, does not explore the desire, the obsession or the consequences of incest, as Close My Eyes does.
I can't see how anyone could say this film is "nonsensical rubbish"? There is nothing nonsensical about it, it makes complete sense, and the subject is not treated in a titillating way. Instead it is explored with sensitivity and creativity.
The Cement Garden flirts and farts around with the topic, unable or unwilling to seriously approach the subject, whereas Close My Eyes takes the topic head on and fully explores the causes and consequences.
"...nothing is left of me, each time I see her..." - Catullus
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Weird you thought that. I thought Rickman acted them both off the screen, all the more impressively since he actually said rather little.
shareWeird you thought that. I thought Rickman acted them both off the screen, all the more impressively since he actually said rather little.
Indeed, the scene where he's struggling against his desire to search through Natalie's things in the bedroom is very nice as is the one where she returns. There's this nice undercurrent of tension there and the boat trip which follows is similarly tense. Love it.
I trust Severus Snape completely.
Strange, it was the opposite for me. Rickman's character was the only one who stayed with me after watching the film. Even when I mentioned this film to my boyfriend - he said he only remembers this film because of Rickman's performance and his cool, calm attitude to the brother's & sister's relationship.
I personally thought Sinclair was the only 'attractive' character in the film.
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The only thing that the words 'very very bad' can be applied is your critique of the fim, which I thought was rather good and featured an excellent performance from Rickman and also from Clive Owen.
Look at him! Look at Jeff Wode!
While I thought the film was imperfect, I did enjoy it quite a lot. Being such a 'forbidden' subject, I'm actually surprised it got made at all, especially when it pulled no punches with the subject matter. There were also quite a few comedic touches thrown in to lighten the mood, which were needed to keep it from getting too heavy.
The acting was top-notch all around, the script was decent, and the direction simply got the job done. Nothing fancy, but it worked. I'm thinking that the subject of incest makes a lot of critics uncomfortable, as it should. But if you are so uncomfortable with the subject that you can reject a movie outright because of it, you need to ask yourself why you're having such a strong reaction.
I thought it was a good character study.
My girlfriend watched it with me, and she was highly entertained and amused by the whole idea of the thing, and the way the characters were interacting. I laughed out loud about two-thirds of the way into the movie, when Reeves and Owen are sitting far across from each other in that hotel lobby, and Reeves starts her antics (yet again), and Owen flips out (yet again). My girlfriend rolled her eyes, and proclaimed, "These two need some serious counseling!"
Understatement of the year.
This is a very enjoyable but awful film. It is so bad that you may find yourself laughing hysterically at the acting/script from beginning to end.
If you enjoyed this movie I would recomment 'Take me Home' starring Keith Barron :)