A big hit in its day which made a star of Glenda Jackson and director Ken Russell. I think, in hindsight, maybe it had just the right amount of straight sex at just the right time - straight sex, though there's plenty of homoeroticism, in particular the famous nude wrestling match between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates... which still retains the power to confront because its still so rare for male stars to do full frontal nudity especially where they wrestle each other.
It's a very well made movie - it looks beautiful. I can't believe it was so cheap - $1.5 million at the time. It's got location work in Switzerland, big old mansions, 1910s period detail.
Russell keeps his excesses mostly in check - or maybe it's more a case he directs as the material dictates (in say The Music Lovers the material required flamboyant treatment).
It is long - overlong I feel. It also feels like an adaptation of a book - it lacks narrative drive and build. It should build to a climax- Reed trying to kill Jackson then killing himself - but while it's all motivated and everything, it doesn't feel like a dramatic locomotive its more a prepared surprise. Which I think would work better in a book, not that I've read the book.
It has some excellent acting - Jackson and Reed have the showiest roles but Bates and Jennie Linden are good too (they just have less interesting parts because they're more perfect). Eleanor Brom is effective as an arty type - quite a big part though she doesn't often get remembered.
The themes about the relationships between men and women and men and men and women and women are still fresh today.
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