Bitter Moon

Director: Roman Polanski
Year Released: 1992
Rating: 1.0

While on a cruise to India, a sleazy American expatriate (Peter Coyote) in a wheelchair decides to tell the story of how he met his wife (Emmanuelle Seigner) to an uptight but curious British gent (Hugh Grant) - meanwhile, Grant's seemingly domestic and uptight gal pal (Kristen Scott Thomas) is sadly neglected back in their stateroom. Not a shred of this story of cruelty and revenge is remotely believable - it's often laughably ludicrous (my favorite moment: Coyote using a modem to order sex, then getting blown while shaking the living daylights out of a fluffy white dog) - and it's often as if Polanski decided to remove himself from reality and translate to the screen a Harlequin novel. Using your brain to make sense of it - contrivances mar the lengthy narrative - will only cause fits and distract you from Polanski's warning about the hazards of sexual rapaciousness.