A bit of a strange film, this one. It should be brilliant: the central concept of the incestuous relationship should be harrowing, horrifying, devastating in equal measure, but the film never fully explores the consequences of the brother/sister pairing. In fact, it's a film in which nothing much really happens, despite the dramatic potential.
Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves both work hard to convey sympathy as the siblings caught up in a living nightmare, but director Poliakoff shoots the whole film as a romance when in reality a more horrific approach might have worked. The characters are also a mystery; Reeves fails to elicit much sympathy at any point, while Owen's bullish stalker comes across as more of an obsessive villain than anything else.
I spent the whole of this lengthy, slow-paced film waiting for an explosive denouement, and while there are some decent bits at the climax, it never pays off. You finish the film thinking 'Oh, was that it?' instead of being wowed by what you've just watched. And for a movie to waste Alan Rickman in an entirely boring and superfluous supporting role is something of a travesty.
Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves both work hard to convey sympathy as the siblings caught up in a living nightmare, but director Poliakoff shoots the whole film as a romance when in reality a more horrific approach might have worked. The characters are also a mystery; Reeves fails to elicit much sympathy at any point, while Owen's bullish stalker comes across as more of an obsessive villain than anything else.
I spent the whole of this lengthy, slow-paced film waiting for an explosive denouement, and while there are some decent bits at the climax, it never pays off. You finish the film thinking 'Oh, was that it?' instead of being wowed by what you've just watched. And for a movie to waste Alan Rickman in an entirely boring and superfluous supporting role is something of a travesty.