Henry And June (Phillip Kaufman, 1990, USA)
Rating: M Running time: 133 minutes
Henry And June, based on Anaïs Nin’s diaries about her relationship with Henry Miller during his Parisian years is one of those films that make you wonder why it was ever made. Kaufman, who captured a slice of Americana so well with The Right Stuff, (1983) here tackles a story largely about a French woman (Nin) set in Paris in the early 1930s. As he also penned the script with his wife, Rose, there is nothing to excuse what seems to be a complete lack of empathy for the subject matter. Compounding the problem is the casting. Why anyone thought Fred Ward would make a good Miller is a mystery. His dodgy bald wig only manages to make him look more ridiculous whilst he affects a Brooklyn accent and talks like a character out of a Raymond Chandler novel. Uma Thurman who likewise has the Brooklyn accent, pouts and looks effectively seductive but that’s really all she does as she is absent through what feels like a very long film. Maria de Medeiros, Portugese-born actress, has the right wide-eyed gamine looks and makes for a quite serviceable Nin, but on the other hand Richard E. Grant is ill-cast as her banker husband, Hugo Guiler, as it is impossible to tell what nationality he is supposed to be. And then there’s Kevin Spacey as Miller’s wannabe writer friend, Osborn. There’s plenty of soft focus frottage and familiar prurient titillation over the sexual abandon of bohemians, including a fair dose of girl-on-girl action (which earned the film America's first ever NC-17 rating although now in Australia it gets only an M rating), but it is largely a classily made soap opera ( Philippe Rousselot's cinematography was nominated for an Oscar) with mechanical dramaturgy and no tangible sense of time or place. BH
DVD available from: Umbrella Entertainment
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